Why is the 9 box grid considered outdated?

The criticism is aimed at the potential axis rather than the 3x3 shape. Rating potential means predicting how someone will perform in a job they have not held, usually without a written definition of what is being predicted. Research on roughly 30,000 management-track employees, published in the American Economic Review, found that moving from a medium to a high potential rating raised promotion odds by 75 percent while an equivalent performance-rating improvement raised them by 27 percent, and that women received potential ratings 8.3 percent lower than men despite higher performance ratings. Two further problems are that labels persist between cycles and that an annual snapshot gets treated as a standing verdict. The grid is still useful as a structure for calibration discussions; it is weak as a prediction tool.