Purpose of the talent management function is to differentiate your employees so that leaders can have more clarity and insight when making talent decisions. These decisions may be promotion readiness, successor readiness, high potential designation, development planning, or even charting career paths for employees.
Differentiating among talented employees is challenging, and many HR professionals do not approach this work with enough preparation, data, and rigour. In my previous article on ‘The Four Essentials of Talent Discussions’, we established that effective talent discussions involve the topics of performance, potential, readiness, and fit. These essential topics, when supported with strong data, help leaders differentiate their talent so they can maximise the strengths and potential of all their employees.
Over my years leading the talent function, various 9-Box models and even some 16-Box models have surfaced. Many two-dimensional talent tools have been tied to such dimensions as performance, potential, leadership, team player, behaviours, and impact. The enduring challenge, however, is making the process robust and fair. After years of trying different 9-Box models, I created an 11-Box version that yields better differentiation by including two special categories and by using anchored performance and potential criteria.
The goal of this article is to provide enough practical understanding of the 11-Box model to implement it in the talent review process. Your organisation may adopt it to accommodate your workforce dynamics, HR data, and organisation structure.
Why an 11-Box model and how to use it?
Although 9-Box models are plentiful, clear instructions on how to use them effectively are not. In practice, leaders may, in an effort to ‘box everyone’, place employees who are under-performing, lacking performance data, are new, or are below average in box 9 rather than truly consider how they match the criteria for that box. This practice compromises the 9-Box criteria and is not fair to employees who need more time to prove themselves. Therefore, a 10th box is needed for employees who are below average performers or who do not meet the expectations for their current level. The integrity of the criteria of all the boxes is maintained by having this box. The 11th box is for employees who are too early to assess due to not enough data or knowledge about them to accurately gauge performance and potential.
My 11-Box model looks at performance over three years and potential for growth into roles of higher responsibility, complexity, scope, and scale within five years. This model helps facilitate the discussion of performance and potential, and although it can facilitate a readiness and role fit talent discussion, those topics are more in the realm of succession planning and critical role discussions.
To prepare for a 11-Box session, identify a peer group in the same company and at a similar career stage/organisation level, such as early career professionals, experienced professionals, senior professionals, supervisors, managers, and directors. In my experience, this model works well for peer group employee populations from 10 – 80 employees. It is important to have at least 10 employees to compare and accurately differentiate between peer group employees.
The leaders in the meeting should be one and two levels above the people they are evaluating. The meeting must include the direct leaders of those in the peer group being evaluated and other leaders who work with the peer group. This is critical because these leaders do the performance evaluations of the group and because they will have first-hand knowledge of what it takes to succeed in roles at higher levels, which is essential for estimating the potential of people for targeted levels.
The leaders in the meeting will need data on the employees such as name, title, grade code (GC), age, three years of performance ratings, past roles, achievement highlights, recent acting assignments, and certifications, and education degrees. The information that goes into each box as you facilitate the meeting is just name, GC, and age. In addition, if a person has the potential to be a more senior professional and not a people leader, then a (pro) designation is added after the age. The age of the employee is important because it relates to how much time they have in their career to gain more experience and progress. The older people are, the less time they have to realise their potential.
Before we talk about the criteria for the boxes, a word of caution. Avoid labelling the boxes anything more than boxes 1 – 11. When you place a label on a box such as ‘All Star’ for box 1, then people associate the box with what they think is an ‘All Star’ rather than think about the performance and potential criteria. Similarly, if you label box 9 with a negative label, then people become associated with that label. Labels can replace critical thinking and fair judgement, so keep the focus on the performance and potential criteria.
The Performance Dimension
In talent meetings, both individual data and comparisons are vital. A three-year performance rating average is the starting point for guiding the discussion, but it should not absolutely determine in which box a person is placed. With the standard method of performance rating distribution curves, there may not be much difference between someone who usually receives a superior performance rating from someone who typically receives the next highest rating. In sum, performance ratings guide and comparisons confirm the performance dimension decision. As more people are included in the boxes, it will become easier to do comparisons to better gauge the performance of people.
The performance criteria initial guidance is:
- Superior – highest performance rating twice or more in the last three years; consistently top 20% performer among peers; often exceeds expectations
- Strong – next highest performance rating twice or more in the last three years; consistently top 40% performer among peers; regularly exceeds expectations
- Average – average performance ratings; competent and sometimes exceeds expectations
The Potential Dimension
Potential is difficult to measure because there are many variables to consider, it is a future projection, and people may develop over time. Therefore, the potential dimension is called ‘current estimated potential’. It is an estimate based on robust input from assessments, proven capabilities, leadership abilities, achievements in multiple roles, and the estimate of multiple senior leaders.
Potential is not the same as job performance, nor can it be measured by just IQ and positive feedback from others. Furthermore, one must discern what kind of potential is being considered. Is it the potential to be a technical leader who is an expert in a certain process or technology and therefore more of a high potential professional? Or is it the potential to be a manager or an executive? Are you looking at Marketing or Operations leadership? These questions have different variables that must be considered. What is agreed on is that potential is the likelihood of succeeding in roles at more senior levels. Thus, my current estimated potential scale is:
- At Level – is not expected to advance to a higher level of responsibility, complexity, scale, and scope within the next five years
- +1 Level – is expected to advance to a higher level of responsibility, complexity, scale, and scope within the next five years (e.g., move from Supervisor to Manager)
- +2 Level – is expected to advance to a significantly higher level of responsibility, complexity, scale, and scope within the next five years (e.g., move from Supervisor to Director)
This potential scale is also why it is critical to measure a peer group within one 11-Box. You are estimating potential based on an individual’s characteristics and on how the individual compares against peers. Does the person differentiate as more capable, a better leader, more highly adaptable, with a stronger record of achievement, and has the motivation and drive to succeed and take on roles of higher responsibility and complexity within your company? Be sure to consider your context. An incredibly bright and accomplished leader who is new to your company may not fit the culture and thus would not have as much potential in your company as perhaps another one.
Discussing potential requires careful consideration by those who have worked with the person and assessments that yield valuable information on abilities, personality, risk factors, and comparison to highly successful leaders at the target level. Here are some questions that can help drive a comparison and discussion on potential:
- Has the person been a leader in multiple organisations and has he/she shown the ability to adapt to varying demands and expectations beyond his/her areas of expertise? Has the person learned quickly and improved rapidly while in these roles?
- Has the person worked through others and developed a team to be successful? Are others motivated to perform at their best under the leader?
- Is the person motivated to do his/her best and take on roles with more responsibility, and complexity, with increases in scope and scale as well as expectations?
- Does the person have the executive presence, communication skills, political skills, and business acumen to succeed at the senior management or executive level?
The next area of consideration is assessments and what data suggests could be the potential. There are many validated assessments on the market by reputable firms, and these assessments should be normed at the target level for the potential being estimated. Thus, a manager may be assessed against an executive norm group. Here are few popular assessments considered in talent reviews:
- SHL Assessments such as the OPQ which looks at 32 dimensions of personality
- Ravens Progressive Matrices which measure inductive thinking and abstract reasoning skills
- Hogan Development Survey, which looks at 11 potential derailers for leaders; also, the Hogan MPVI, which looks at a person’s core goals, values, drivers, and interests
- KornFerry Leadership Potential Report, which has seven categories for assessing the potential for someone to be successful in more senior leadership roles
11-Box Talent Review Conclusions
As more people are added to the 11-Box, the leaders in the room need to stack rank the people within each box and this will help determine if people are in the right grouping (e.g. is one leader better matched with people in box 3 rather than box 2?). The more peer group employees in one 11-Box model, then clearer the groupings within a box will become.
Completing a Talent Review with the 11-Box model is a great experience that will lead to many insights on individuals and will give leaders a comparative view of their people. The output can support discussions in succession planning, promotion planning, performance ratings, development planning, and career path decisions.
At the most fundamental level, there are many considerations for all employees who are placed in a box that comprise the model. Here are a few considerations:
