The 9 BOX matrix It's a very useful tool for those who work with talent management, whether for identifying and developing leaders or planning succession within the company.
Developed by McKinsey and refined by General Electric in the late 1960s, this analysis methodology is widely used when it comes to the development and growth of human resources in organizations.
Assigning employees to suitable positions and identifying the right time for transitions is a challenge for managers, which can be eased with this tool that helps analyze an employee's current contribution and their future collaboration potential.
Follow this article and understand how Nine Box can be used to manage your company's talent and assist in leadership identification.
What is the 9 Box Matrix?
It is a simple and quite effective tool whose function is to analyze a company's employees from two perspectives: their past/current performance and their future potential.
The Nine Box Matrix consists of a graphical table with nine quadrants where team members are placed according to their performance and potential. Their attributes are measured on a 3-level scale: low, moderate, and high.
The horizontal line is the X-axis of the matrix, with 3 boxes that assess the employee's current performance. The vertical line is the Y-axis, also with 3 boxes, that assesses the employee's leadership potential. The combination of the X and Y axes is the box in which the professional is placed on the grid.
The matrix can be used to identify potential leaders within the company or for succession planning, as the vertical columns of the table indicate the professional's growth potential and the horizontal rows show whether they are meeting their role's performance expectations – or if they are falling short or exceeding them.
How can its use help identify leaders?
As mentioned, the idea behind the Nine Box matrix is that the X-axis shows performance and the Y-axis assesses a professional's leadership potential. Their combination determines where the employee is placed on the matrix.
Individuals who reach the upper right quadrant can then be considered high-potential candidates for leadership, to be included in the company's succession plan, and to assume new positions.
Furthermore, there is the added advantage that the Nine Box points out the need for training and development actions, as well as reallocations. The tool also ends up identifying those professionals with poor performance and low potential, with whom the company should not invest time and effort.
How to use it in practice?
Ideally, the tool should be used by a team, with a facilitator experienced in the methodology, who could be an HR professional or someone responsible for leadership development and/or succession planning.
The first step is to decide how performance will be evaluated and what the criteria will be for evaluating specific potentials. A good strategy is to choose a high-performing individual with high potential as a benchmark, and then compare the same criteria for other employees against theirs.
Next, it's important to ensure the entire team understands the process and knows its importance and how it can benefit everyone. Then, it's possible to discuss the remaining Nine Box names together.
Once this is done, it may be possible for the team to subsequently discuss development plans for each leader according to their performance and potential.
As was possible to see, 9 Box Matrix it is a valuable tool for managers to identify talent within the organization and, during the evaluation process, to work on career and succession plans for professionals who have excelled and shown leadership potential.
