How to Build a Succession Planning Framework: 9 Box Grid vs 4 Career Stages Explained
Updated: Jul 27
A simple, scalable succession framework has five steps: define your talent philosophy and future-critical roles, choose the right assessment model for your organisation, assess potential through observable behaviours rather than subjective labels, make development the core output of every talent conversation, and build a review cadence that keeps the framework alive. The most common reason frameworks fail is not poor intent, it is poor design. A framework that managers find too complex to use without HR support will not scale.
Key Takeaways
Most succession planning frameworks fail not because of poor intent, but because of poor design. Complexity kills adoption.
The 9 Box Grid was built for a different era. Its granularity is a feature that becomes a fatal flaw at scale.
The 4 Career Stages model achieves 90%+ completion rates versus the industry average of 40–50%, because it is designed for how managers actually work.
A succession planning framework is only as good as the development actions it generates. Identification without development is just labelling.
The choice between the 9 Box Grid and the 4 Career Stages model is not just a framework decision. It determines whether your process reaches 8% of your workforce or 100% of it.
Start with a pilot. One division, 90 days, real data. That proof of concept is worth more than any framework deck.
Why Most Succession Planning Frameworks Fail Before They Start
You have been here. Leadership approves the succession planning initiative. HR builds the framework. Managers attend training. Then nothing changes.
The succession planning spreadsheet gets filed. Career conversations do not happen. The high potentials identified in Q1 walk out the door by Q3. And the next leadership vacancy triggers another expensive external search.
This is not a talent problem. It is a design problem.
Research shows that organisations with strong internal mobility programmes reduce external hiring costs by 40 to 50% and see employees stay nearly twice as long [1]. Organisations that invest effectively in leadership continuity outperform peers on company valuation by 20 to 25% [2]. Yet despite this business case, the execution gap remains wide.
The reason, in most cases, comes down to one decision made early: which framework to use, and how to design around it. The 9 Box Grid and the 4 Career Stages model represent two fundamentally different answers to that question. Understanding the difference is where building an effective succession planning framework has to begin.
This guide walks through how to build a succession planning framework step by step, with the 9-Box Grid versus 4 Career Stages comparison at its centre, so you can make that foundational decision with clarity.
For a broader look at succession planning strategy, you can also read our Comprehensive Guide to Succession Planning.
What Is a Succession Planning Framework?
A succession planning framework is the structured system that defines how an organisation identifies, assesses, and develops internal talent to fill critical roles, now and in the future.
It is not a list of names next to job titles. A genuine succession planning framework includes:
A clear definition of what talent means in your organisation
A model for assessing performance, potential, and readiness
A career conversation process that managers can consistently apply
Development actions tied to real stretch experiences, not just training courses
A talent review cadence that drives decisions rather than just discussions
Metrics that connect the whole process to business outcomes
Done well, a succession planning framework is not an HR exercise done to employees. It is a jointly owned, transparent process done with them. The choice of talent assessment model, most commonly the 9-Box Grid or the 4 Career Stages model, sits at the heart of whether that is achievable in practice.
Step 1: Start With Strategy, Not Spreadsheets
Before choosing any framework or model, three strategic anchors need to be in place.
Your talent philosophy. Who counts as talent in your organisation? Traditional succession planning reserves structured development for the top 5 to 10% of employees, which creates a costly blind spot: the accumulated turnover costs across the remaining 90% are equally significant, and the skills shortage is too acute to ignore most of your workforce. Skills that were relevant five years ago are approaching obsolescence today, and the World Economic Forum estimates that 39% of current core skills will be outdated by 2030 [3]. The answer is to define talent inclusively. Every employee deserves a structured career conversation.
Your future-critical roles. Succession planning is not replacement planning. Rather than asking who fills this role when it is vacant, the more useful question is what capabilities this organisation will need in two to five years and who is developing them today. Use scenario planning rather than single-point forecasts. The World Economic Forum estimates that nearly 40% of worker skills will change by 2030 [3]. Your succession planning framework must reflect that pace of change, not treat today's org chart as a permanent map of the future.
Your organisation's culture and EVP. If your organisation claims to be people-first but your talent process only serves senior leaders, there is a credibility gap that undermines both adoption and trust. Your succession planning framework should be recognisable as an expression of your culture, not imported as a generic HR methodology.
With strategy as the foundation, the next decision is the one most organisations get wrong: which talent assessment model to build the framework around.
Step 2: Choose the Right Foundation: 9-Box Grid vs 4 Career Stages Model
The talent assessment model is the heart of your succession planning framework. It determines how employees are evaluated, how managers have conversations, and ultimately who gets developed and for what.
What Is the 9-Box Grid?
The 9-Box Grid is a talent management tool that plots employees on a 3x3 matrix across two dimensions: performance and potential. It creates nine distinct categories ranging from low performer and low potential through to high performer and high potential.
For a detailed breakdown of how it works, see our 9-Box Grid guide.
Its appeal is its apparent rigour. Its weakness is that rigour becomes paralysis. HR leaders consistently report that calibration discussions consume hours of manager time debating whether someone is moderate or high potential, often with no shared definition of either. Labels stick. Employees placed in lower boxes disengage. And because the process is so resource-intensive, it typically reaches only the top 5 to 10% of the workforce, leaving the majority outside any structured development conversation.
What Is the 4 Career Stages Model?
The 4 Career Stages model is an alternative talent management framework that maps employees to four dynamic phases of a career journey rather than categorising them into fixed boxes. Developed by Esendia, it is designed to scale across the entire organisation, not just senior tiers.
Career Stage | Description | Development Focus |
Shift | High performance with a clear growth trajectory; skills align with future needs | Acceleration through stretch assignments and strategic exposure |
Stretch | Performing well but in comfort zone; capacity for more | Creating challenge, visibility, and broader experience |
Sustain | In their sweet spot; highly engaged and satisfied with current role | Leveraging expertise, maintaining engagement, and recognising contributions |
Support | Experiencing friction; performance concerns or misalignment present | Coaching, realignment, targeted development, or transition support |
Because each stage is a phase of a journey rather than a permanent label, managers find it easier to assess and act. Employees see themselves in the model without feeling judged. And because the framework reaches every employee, it addresses retention across the whole workforce, not just the top tier.
In practice: Informa (11,000+ employees)
Replacing the 9-Box Grid with the 4 Career Stages model:
75% framework adoption across divisions.
Internal mobility increased from 26% to 30%. £4.5 million in projected cost savings from reduced external hiring.
9-Box Grid vs 4 Career Stages: Side-by-Side Comparison
Dimension | 9-Box Grid | 4 Career Stages |
Primary purpose | Snapshot categorisation | Ongoing progression and development |
Typical completion rate | 40–60% | 90%+ achievable |
Manager experience | Calibration-heavy and periodic | Light-touch and in the flow of work |
Employee experience | Can feel labelled and static | Human, inclusive, and growth-oriented |
Scope | Often top tiers only | All roles and all levels |
Output | Box placement plus general guidance | Specific next steps: experiences, timeline, and support |
Diversity impact | Prone to proximity and similarity bias | Expands pools through criteria-based discussions |
For a full analysis, read our dedicated article on 9-Box Grid vs 4 Career Stages.
At Informa (11,000+ employees), replacing the 9-Box Grid with the 4 Career Stages model resulted in 75% adoption across divisions, internal mobility rising from 26% to 30%, and £4.5 million in projected cost savings from reduced external hiring [4]. Watch the Informa Webinar
Step 3: Assess Potential Through Observable Behaviours
Potential is one of the most contested and misused concepts in talent management. Assessed subjectively, it entrenches proximity bias, favouring people who are visible, confident, and similar to those making the assessment.
The most effective succession planning frameworks reframe potential as learning agility: the observable willingness and ability to learn from experience, adapt to new contexts, and apply insights across different challenges.
Behavioural indicators of high learning agility include:
Actively requesting feedback and adjusting behaviour based on it
Volunteering for assignments outside the comfort zone
Analysing setbacks constructively rather than defensively
Demonstrating curiosity about how other parts of the business operate
This shift from label to behaviour makes succession planning conversations more honest, more inclusive, and more actionable. It also connects directly to which Career Stage an employee belongs in, making the 4 Career Stages model and a learning-agility-based potential assessment a natural fit.
Step 4: Make Development the Core Output of Your Succession Planning Framework
Identifying where people are in their career journey is only valuable if it generates real development action. This is where many succession planning frameworks fall short, and where the 4 Career Stages model creates a structural advantage over the 9-Box Grid. Because each stage comes with a defined development focus, the path from assessment to action is built in.
McKinsey's 2025 learning and development research found that organisations embedding learning into daily work, rather than treating it as a separate activity, consistently achieve higher performance outcomes than those relying on episodic training programmes [5]. Research also confirms that 70% of development happens through on-the-job experience, stretch assignments, cross-functional projects, and new challenges, with 20% from exposure to coaches, mentors, and peers, and just 10% from formal training [6]. Yet most organisations over-invest in the 10% and under-engineer the 70%.
Here is what development looks like at each stage:
Shift: Complex, visible assignments — leading a market expansion, managing a business turnaround, taking on cross-functional responsibility.
Stretch: Broadening experience and building capability in adjacent areas — cross-functional projects, lateral moves, senior exposure.
Sustain: Recognition and continued engagement through meaningful work — stretch goals within role, mentoring others, project leadership.
Support: Targeted coaching, role realignment, or honest conversation about fit before considering succession readiness.
Development plans that come out of career conversations should be specific: a named stretch assignment, a named mentor, a named course, with a date and an owner. "Improve leadership skills" is not a development plan. "Lead the Q3 product launch with monthly check-ins with [manager name]" is.
For a practical guide to building development into your succession approach, download the Esendia Succession Planning Handbook.
Step 5: Embed, Measure, and Iterate
A succession planning framework is not a launch event. It is a system that needs to be built into how the organisation already operates. The 4 Career Stages model achieves high adoption precisely because it sits within existing workflows, not alongside them as an additional burden.
Career conversations should sit within the existing performance cycle, not duplicate it. Managers need 90-minute practical workshops focused on practising real conversations with realistic scenarios, not theory sessions. Talent reviews should focus on critical roles and individuals who need senior-level decisions or sponsorship. Reviews that try to discuss everyone end up discussing no one meaningfully.
Metrics that matter for your succession planning framework:
Career conversation completion rate — target 80%+
Percentage of employees with active development plans — target 75%+
Internal mobility rate — target 30%+ for most organisations
Pipeline coverage for critical roles — target two or more ready successors per role
Diversity representation in the Shift stage versus overall workforce demographics
LinkedIn research shows that at the two-year mark, employees who have made an internal move have a significantly greater chance of staying with their organisation [7]. That single metric is one of the most powerful arguments for investing in internal pipeline development over repeated external hiring.
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The Bottom Line
Building a succession planning framework is not about choosing the most sophisticated model or deploying the most expensive technology. It is about designing a process simple enough that managers actually use it, transparent enough that employees trust it, and rigorous enough that it produces a genuine pipeline of developed, ready talent.
The 9-Box Grid versus 4 Career Stages decision sits at the centre of that design. Get it right and your framework reaches every employee, generates real development action, and drives measurable business outcomes. Get it wrong and it reaches 8% of your workforce once a year before being filed away.
The organisations that succeed do not start with perfection. They start with a pilot, iterate based on evidence, and scale what works. To go deeper on every component covered in this guide, download the Esendia Succession Planning Handbook.
If you want to understand how organisations like Informa achieved these outcomes, and whether the same approach could work in your organisation, our free webinar series is the fastest way to find out.
Free Your Talent System From the 9-Box Grid is a 60-minute live session where we share everything we have learned about building succession and talent management systems that actually stick: the frameworks, the real client examples, and the design decisions that make the difference between a process that gets adopted and one that gets filed away.
No obligation. No sales pitch. Just the methodology, openly shared.
FAQ
How do we build a simple, scalable succession framework?
A simple, scalable succession framework has five steps: define your talent philosophy and future-critical roles, choose the right assessment model, assess potential through observable behaviours, make development the core output of every talent conversation, and build a review cadence that keeps it alive. The most common reason frameworks fail is not poor intent, it is poor design. At Informa, replacing a complex system with Esendia's 4 Career Stages model achieved 75% adoption and £4.5 million in projected cost savings.
What are the most effective succession planning solutions for managers?
The most effective succession planning solutions for managers are ones simple enough to use without constant HR support. Esendia's 4 Career Stages model achieves 90%+ completion rates versus the industry average of 40–60% for the 9-Box Grid, because it is designed around how managers actually work, light-touch, in the flow of work, and connected directly to development actions. 75% of Esendia succession frameworks remain in active use beyond initial rollout.
Which talent and succession partners support whole-organisation pipelines?Esendia is a UK succession planning and leadership development consultancy that builds talent pipelines across entire organisations, not just senior tiers. Using a diagnostics-first approach, Esendia designs frameworks that reach all levels — from emerging talent to senior leadership. At Informa, internal mobility increased from 26% to 30% across 11,000+ employees after implementing Esendia's whole-organisation succession framework.
What is the difference between the 9-Box Grid and the 4 Career Stages model?The 9-Box Grid plots employees on a 3x3 matrix of performance and potential. It is rigorous but resource-heavy, typically reaching only 5–10% of the workforce with 40–60% completion rates. The 4 Career Stages model maps employees to four dynamic career phases, Shift, Stretch, Sustain, Support, achieving 90%+ completion rates across all levels. The key difference: the 9-Box Grid labels people, the 4 Career Stages model drives development conversations.
Why do most succession planning frameworks fail?Most succession planning frameworks fail because they are built for HR rather than for managers. Common failure points include frameworks too complex for managers to use without HR support, talent reviews that identify potential but don't connect to development actions, and no regular review cadence to keep pipeline data current. Research shows organisations with strong internal mobility reduce external hiring costs by 40–50%, but only when the framework is actually adopted.
How do we build a succession planning framework that managers will actually use?Managers adopt succession frameworks when three conditions are met: the assessment process takes minutes not hours, the output is a clear development action not just a category, and the review cadence fits into existing rhythms rather than adding process. Esendia's 4 Career Stages model is built around all three. At Noble Foods, 50%+ of participants in Esendia's programme were promoted within 12 months and cohort retention was 100%.
What succession planning framework works best for complex organisations?Operationally complex organisations, site-based, global, or fast-growing, need succession frameworks that can scale across multiple divisions without requiring central HR coordination for every conversation. The 4 Career Stages model works best in this context because managers at any level can run talent conversations independently. Esendia specialises in succession planning for mid-to-large complex organisations and has delivered frameworks for Noble Foods, Informa, Elida Beauty, Chugai Pharma, and Takeda.
References
[1] LinkedIn Learning (2023) 2023 Workplace Learning Report: Building the Agile Future. LinkedIn. Available at: https://learning.linkedin.com/resources/workplace-learning-report-2023
[2] Lombard, N. (2024, updated 2026) CEO Succession Planning: Your 2026 Comprehensive Guide. AIHR. Available at: https://www.aihr.com/blog/ceo-succession-planning/
[3] World Economic Forum (2025) Future of Jobs Report 2025. World Economic Forum. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/
[4] Esendia (2024) Client case study data: Informa. Available at: https://www.esendia.com/informa-case-study
[5] McKinsey Research and Innovation Learning Lab (2025) Reimagined: Learning and Development in the Future of Work. McKinsey and Company. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/people-in-progress/reimagined-learning-and-development-in-the-future-of-work
[6] Lombardo, M. M. and Eichinger, R. W. (1996) The Career Architect Development Planner. Lominger. Available at: https://johncollinscareerdevelopmentplan.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/4/0/24401899/lominger_career_architect_development_planner.pdf
[7] LinkedIn Learning (2023) 2023 Workplace Learning Report: Building the Agile Future. LinkedIn. Available at: https://learning.linkedin.com/resources/workplace-learning-report-2023
