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Ep. 24 - Getting Promoted: How Companies Analyze Performance
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In this episode, Ken Freire and Patrick Lowndes pull back the curtain on how companies actually decide who gets promoted and who doesn’t. They unpack four of the most common performance evaluation models used by organizations today—from the nine-box grid to talent density and lattice career paths—and explain how understanding these frameworks can position you to add undeniable value. More importantly, they anchor the conversation in a biblical posture of stewardship, reminding listeners that promotion isn’t about self-advancement but faithful excellence.
Resources Mentioned
- Nine-Box Talent Grid (performance vs. potential framework)
- T-Shaped vs. Pi-Shaped Leadership Model
- A-Player / Talent Density Model (Keeper Test popularized by Netflix)
- Lattice vs. Ladder Career Model (research highlighted by Gartner)
- Frontier Operators (leadership development framework referenced by hosts)
- Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25)
- Colossians 3:23
Timestamps
- 00:01 – Why You Need to Know the Scorecard: Understanding how companies allocate raises and promotions.
- 02:09 – The Nine-Box Grid: Performance vs. potential and how strategic discernment and AI literacy impact future growth.
- 05:04 – T-Shaped vs. Pi-Shaped Leaders: Why multidimensional adaptability increases promotion odds.
- 08:02 – The A-Player Talent Density Model: The Keeper Test and what makes someone worth fighting for.
- 11:08 – Lattice vs. Ladder Careers: Why lateral moves often unlock greater growth than straight promotions.
- 13:34 – Hybrid & Custom Scorecards: How most companies mix multiple evaluation models.
- 15:08 – A Biblical Lens on Promotion: Stewardship, diligence, and serving with excellence.
- 18:28 – A Practical Action Step: Ask your boss what problem is keeping them up at night—and solve it.
Recommended
![Ep. 23 - Getting Promoted [2026]: Show Proof of Value image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/630c9f06819f8b3dba5fa460/90d98cfc-639d-40ba-836c-1da926a16604.png)
Transcript
Introduction to 'Bury Talent'
00:00:08
Ken Freire
Welcome to Bury Talent, the show for young professionals that tears down false beliefs about faith and work so you can unbury your God-given talent right where you are. I'm Ken
Getting Promoted Insights
00:00:18
Ken Freire
Freire and here with my co-host today, Patrick Lowndes, and we're talking about second part of getting promoted, how companies analyze performance.
00:00:27
Ken Freire
Patrick, why is it important? Analyzing what they do.
00:00:31
Patrick
Yeah. Well, if you don't know the scorecard and how you're being measured, ah then you're kind of flying blind. And there's lots of opinions out there about how, know, what you should do to position yourself to get this raise or to get this promotion. And we'll talk about money and and kind of the specifics. I'll say the finer points of what happens in that conversation and kind of the decisions that get made.
00:00:54
Patrick
But before we approach that, we have to think about like, what are they doing behind the scenes. Because every company, especially if you get to any amount of size, there is a process. There is a way that you either fit into the process favorably or you're not fitting into the process favorably. And you need to understand what that is.
00:01:13
Ken Freire
Yeah. And
Understanding the Nine Box Grid
00:01:14
Ken Freire
that that's where when we get understanding, we'll get clarity. So let's talk about this. um how do you How do we want to frame this for everybody? There's a lot of meat today that we want them to walk away with.
00:01:27
Patrick
Yeah. Well, it's it's really, you want to think about every company has a budget that they're working with. And so what you're thinking about here is this is this is really a capital allocation conversation, right? They have a certain budget they're working with to to deal with, um, giving out raises, considering adjustments in people's promotion. And so leading up to this point, you've already been evaluated. um Probably the company is doing their job well more than just once a year.
00:01:57
Patrick
If it's a startup, maybe they're rookie at this and it is literally once a year.
00:02:00
Ken Freire
you
00:02:01
Patrick
But a lot of big companies do like a mid-year review. Um, some of them even do like a quarterly check-in. Like there's all sorts of different rhythms that are out there, but what we want to figure out is, is laying out four of of some of the the common ways that companies are doing this.
00:02:16
Patrick
And then even a fifth one that will be a helpful tip for you to like discern and figure out how is your specific company doing that? So without further ado, let's jump into the first one with the nine box grid.
00:02:27
Patrick
You want to take this one?
00:02:29
Ken Freire
Yeah, so this is a
Multidimensional Skills in Leadership
00:02:30
Ken Freire
the foundational map where sometimes the team base called current performance versus fume future potential. A lot of people have used this when it comes to like the placement model. And if we had a picture up, you would see that you got like on the x-axis, you got potential. And then on the y-axis, you got performance. And I just lost everybody when I said x and y-axis.
00:02:51
Patrick
Well, actually, it's the x-axis on the bottom is performance, and potential is on on the left side, and the y-axis is going up.
00:02:51
Ken Freire
Right?
00:02:57
Patrick
See, Ken, we should have labeled them.
00:02:59
Ken Freire
You we should have labeled up. I should have passed algebra at some point. um But here's here's what this is this is doing, the nine box grid. right look The goal is that if you can show you can handle complexity, right you move higher in your potential.
00:03:18
Ken Freire
This has been popular in most five hundred Fortune 500 companies. Over 70% of large enterprises use this. in twenty twenty six In 2026, 82% of HR leaders report that AI literacy and strategic discernment are now the primary filters for potential in this access.
00:03:37
Ken Freire
So as you talk about how you're trying to grow your potential, understand that you want to know strategic discernment and
00:03:38
Patrick
Yep.
00:03:48
Ken Freire
Right. AI literacy. That's what they're measuring you for. So if you're looking at your job and saying,
Retaining Top Performers
00:03:54
Ken Freire
how can I get allocated more resources or promotion? These are the things you want to start kind of being mindful of.
00:04:01
Patrick
Yeah. And if you, so you can look up again, nine box talent grid or nine box, you know, performance assessment, you'll see that what those nine boxes are, but the bottom left is like risk. It's not very good. Like low risk, low, you know, low performance, low, low potential, not the place where you want to be.
00:04:19
Patrick
You might be pretty solid on your performance, right? Which is like, it actually says solid performer on some of these models, like high in performance, right? But if you are low potential, it might mean that you are staying within the lines of your role. It might mean that you are doing the things like you are box checking really efficiently. You're reliable as a performer, but you're not necessarily looking up at what you at what the business could need. You're not anticipating as many needs. So one of the ways to shift up in potential is like what Ken's talking about, this strategic leadership.
00:04:52
Patrick
Looking up and outside of the role or the tasks right in front of you and thinking downstream, downline, how are my actions in this product or in this project, how are those actions affecting teams around me?
00:05:05
Patrick
That's the difference between someone who's like just good at their job and someone who's good that has higher performance ah potential.
00:05:11
Ken Freire
Okay.
00:05:12
Patrick
Cool. That's number one, nine box. Number two is the
Career Growth: Lateral Moves
00:05:16
Patrick
T-shaped leader versus the pie-shaped leader. um And if you've talked with me before, I've probably mentioned, you know we all get ah really good these days.
00:05:26
Patrick
We over-specialize and we grow the the long part of that T, which is like one domain that you're really good at. like i'm really good at software engineering or I'm really good at finance, right?
00:05:38
Patrick
But the tops of those T's are are basically the size, the breadth of what that leader is capable of. And what we're seeing is that more companies are interested in this, what they're calling more of a pie-shaped pie.
00:05:48
Patrick
shaped pi not When I first heard that, I was like, ooh, I'm getting hungry, pie. it's not that kind of pie it's like the 3.14 number pie and if you've seen that that um that that number for it the the numerical you know image of it it actually is like it's like it looks like a table you got the two legs and then the one on top that's connecting them so
00:05:53
Ken Freire
Thank you.
00:06:09
Patrick
What is pie shaped? It might be someone who's good at like software engineering is one leg of the pie. And it could be like product strategy. And how does that strategy go to market? Like that's a really powerful second skill set. And then maybe on the top is like, how how is, you know for example, how is my AI strategy going to inform how I build the product and how I bring it to market? Now I got three really you know integrated kind of skill sets.
00:06:38
Patrick
More and more companies, Ken, are moving away from just, oh, you're you're just this role and you got a little bit yeah on the sides.
00:06:38
Ken Freire
Thank you.
00:06:45
Patrick
They're looking for multidimensional people. And so your company
Hybrid Performance Evaluation Models
00:06:49
Patrick
might be doing that. um yeah Agile software startups are doing this. Some big companies like IBM are also leaning into this.
00:06:57
Patrick
And ah you know there's also a stat here, Ken, I'll share, and then i'll I'll shut up and let you react. to it but the The stat is that um so multidisciplinary adaptability is the number one predictor of promotion.
00:07:12
Patrick
um There's actually 34. If you just look at the numbers here, there's companies that have found pie-shaped employees. um They reduce departmental silo friction by 34% compared to specialists.
00:07:25
Patrick
compared to specialists So like if you if you think about that, it's someone is able to expand out their skill set and and reduce silos across teams. That person is making the operation more smooth.
00:07:37
Ken Freire
Yeah. And there's two things that I just want to quickly reference here. Number one, we here at Frontier Operators love talking about growing operators. And when we talk about operators, we're talking about cross-functional capabilities.
00:07:51
Ken Freire
So we would probably lend more to this T-shape versus pie-shape kind of methodology because we're looking at people and saying, how do you develop yourself in such a strong way that you can help other departments think clearly?
00:08:07
Patrick
That's right. That's right. That's it. Yeah.
00:08:09
Patrick
So T-shape, pie shape, but the idea here is still the same is multidimensional adaptability is going to be ah your strongest key to adding value.
00:08:09
Ken Freire
Yep.
00:08:19
Patrick
Yeah.
00:08:20
Ken Freire
Yeah, so making sure that you are aware of, again, what your company uses so that you can start speaking within that language of how and what they expect from you when it comes to being promoted, which leads to the third one. This is the A player talent density model.
00:08:39
Ken Freire
And what this model it does is that it's looking at how well are you a top performer? And there tends to be a a test, a keeper test that people use. And it goes something like this. If a manager asks, if this person wanted to leave for a competitor tomorrow, would I fight to keep them?
00:08:59
Ken Freire
I want you to think about that really well,
Faith and Career Goals
00:09:01
Ken Freire
because are you worth fighting for?
00:09:01
Patrick
That's a good question.
00:09:06
Ken Freire
And I don't want to be fought for like, but sometimes you got to like, I ask myself that every single morning when I wake up, am I worth fighting for today? Like, am I keeping my position? Am I doing everything that I need to be doing? Am I being faithful and going above and beyond?
00:09:20
Ken Freire
And you got to ask the same question, because if your manager comes down to it and be like, you know what? They're like a B player, a C player. They're going to quickly kind of bump you off.
00:09:32
Patrick
Mm-hmm.
00:09:32
Ken Freire
A great company, well, they're great in their own right. That they do is Netflix. Netflix netflix popularized this type of model. They're always asking this question ah for for their people.
00:09:45
Ken Freire
Stanford in 2025, the Stanford Business Study says this. They found that a single A player in a tech-driven role produces 400% more value than an average performer, making a 20% raise a massive bargain for the employer.
00:10:00
Ken Freire
So I want you to think about this, that if you can bring that much value to your job, it just changes the game. And this is why in last last week's episode, we were talking about keeping the numbers, making sure you're youre able to show the the proof of value that you have.
00:10:10
Patrick
Thank you.
00:10:16
Ken Freire
Because if you're a top performer, you can drastically change it. For them to just give you a 20% raise is nothing compared to losing you right Then they have to spend all the money for talent for another talent acquisition, and they may end up having to hire two people to replace you if you're a top performer.
00:10:36
Ken Freire
So just recognize the massive ability that you have if, one, you're an A player, and, two, if your company uses this type of model, they' they're going to be looking constantly for, are you the talent?
00:10:49
Patrick
That's right. And that brings us to our fourth
Service-Oriented Career Development
00:10:52
Patrick
model that we're going to talk about today, which is the lattice versus the ladder model. um So again, we talked about Gartner last time, and they did some research around this somewhat recently and found out that, again, most people, like 60% of Gen Z in particular, they'll find their air quotes promotion, right?
00:11:15
Patrick
Not by just going straight up, but they'll find it through a lateral shift. And it and you might say, ah ah why is this why is this happening more in lateral shifts? Well, I think when you think about the picture, just picture what a lattice looks like, right? It's just like a bunch of bunch of ladders all together, right? And so it's not it's not that you know going up is bad. What it's saying here is that if you have... um if you have optionality, which this builds really nicely on the previous couple episodes we just released, but if you're building optionality and you're getting to know other teams and how well you can add value within teams even ah around you, then you might actually have a lateral move going sideways that sometimes can actually put you in a different pay bracket. Sometimes they can put you in a team that has a lot more momentum and growth behind it.
00:12:07
Patrick
um For example, so Gartner um spearheaded this model and then ah some big complex organizations like Deloitte, one of the big four consulting firms, Cisco, um they use this internal talent marketplace to move people around. i also know here locally in the Seattle area and Microsoft,
00:12:27
Patrick
searching and shopping for for jobs internally is a thing, like just looking around at different teams. And so going back to Ken's point, like if you're not passing the keeper test, like you're not, you might need to get to some other team where you can pass that test and add a ton of value. And maybe you're in a job right now that's not there. That's not right there knocking it out of the park. So you need to think about what is the the lattice of options around me And Ken, as we were preparing the notes for this, you're like, yeah, but what if you're in a ah small company, you don't have all those different jobs, right?
00:12:59
Patrick
Yep.
00:12:59
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:13:00
Patrick
ah Like for a startup, um your your next your next lattice type opportunity might be at ah another startup in the space. Like you might have to look, maybe there really is only one small engineering team that you're working on and you need to go look at other more, I'll say worthy rivals in the space to go work for. Because now you have some knowledge and there's non-competes you have to consider, but you might have to consider another company um to go make that lateral adjustment. But the lattice model is very interesting because there's not just one path to developing your career. Obviously, there's lots. And so open your eyes up. That's where the networking piece can really come into play.
00:13:39
Patrick
there's number four.
00:13:41
Ken Freire
Which brings us to our last one, and this is the custom scorecard. What ends up happening is these are the big four that we just talked about. But if you're using an HR company or or the HR teams in the inside, or you're smaller company, whatever the thing may be, they might choose a hybrid model.
00:13:59
Ken Freire
And they're cherry picking from each one. Like they might say, hey, we're really all about a players, but they also have a ladder type philosophy. Or they use the nine box and they're working with the keeper test.
00:14:11
Ken Freire
Most organizations use a hybrid model. So they pick from different things. Even as we're talking about each one, you might have thought, oh, yeah, my my company does this one and this one and this one.
00:14:24
Ken Freire
That's OK. That's the reality of where we're at. So some companies will use a mix. They will evaluate their performance based on their own measuring stick. And um and he the truth is, it may not even be written down.
00:14:37
Ken Freire
And it may not seem fair right at the moment, but this is why we're talking about this so that you can be cognizant of it and be like, oh, I'm starting to see glimpses of it. And if you see glimpses of it, then you can, if you know what they're measuring you by, you can start producing results for that.
00:14:56
Patrick
That's right. That's right. And Ken, can you like help us shift a little bit? Because again, I think we we like to talk about, like there's lots of things outside of our control, but I'm buried talent here. Like we like to also talk about what is our responsibility as believers? Can you just tee that up for us? How our faith informs this conversation?
00:15:14
Ken Freire
Yeah, so the big thing is that we're not here about just self-advancement. We're like, all right, let's just make our name for ourselves. We're here about faithfully stewarding what God has given us. And if you look at the parable of the talents, right, some people are given one talent, some people are two, and another person five talents. And our job now is to say, how do we take whatever we've been given ourselves and...
00:15:36
Ken Freire
Steward it well, double our resources, use it as best as possible, and being diligent at the same time, right? Colossians 3.23 says, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord, not for man.
00:15:48
Ken Freire
So you take both of those concepts of working diligently and then...
00:15:52
Patrick
Yep.
00:15:53
Ken Freire
be a good steward of your resources and say, whatever job i'm in, how do I just crush it? And again, we're talking about, we talk about numbers a lot sometimes, but numbers are also helpful for you. So you know what success looks like, like you've succeeded in being a wise steward in what God has given you.
00:16:12
Patrick
Yeah, it's good. And so when you're looking at the system, it's not about, you're not asking your boss about how it all works to come across like, hey, I want to game the system. Like I want to just, you know, max this sucker out. Right. Cause they'll, they'll sniff that out. Like I've been in that, that role where someone's like, okay, Patrick, like, you know, like, I know I'm newer here, but like, I want to know how it works and I want to get that. If you're leading them with like, I want to get that promotion, I want to blah, blah, blah.
00:16:37
Patrick
And you haven't really added much value to the company. um You got to be careful how you, how you kind of broach that conversation. the way that we like to bring up this conversation, you know, with, within frontier operators is, um, yeah, i I do want to know how people, develop their careers at this company, but I also want to figure out what would like, what would be an obvious add to, to your team? Like if you're looking at the entire team, you're saying, man, this person is making such an outsized contribution in their role.
00:17:11
Patrick
that that i want to like I want to help this person stay on my team, goes back to the keeper keeper tool, and I want to see them grow. right And that posture, that's like a missional posture of service. It's like super service, right? Ken, like Jesus is like, lay your life down for your friends. That that means like lay your like ambitions down to some degree so that you can serve really well with excellence, with competence, with reliability. Yeah.
00:17:37
Patrick
And if you as you're doing that, and as a believer, we know our work is like our worship to God. Your boss is also going to see that you're not in it just to win it for you, but you're you're in it for the team's win. And when you demonstrate that as a Christian, they'll they'll notice. They'll be like, man, this guy is just, he really does like want to see the company win. He wants to see the customer win. And when your others focus like that, that sets the stage for, okay, Ken's not just asking me about this because he's trying to just level up and get that next you know pay bump. There's more to it. And
Conclusion and Next Episode Preview
00:18:11
Patrick
yes, you should ask, ah by the way, how are those decisions made? Just so I know all the factors, right? But it's best to ask that when you're early in the job. you have plenty of time to build up that that monthly value you know scorecard that we were talking about in the last episode. So um so yeah, Ken, that's just that's a way to bring it home in terms of in terms of being having the posture of like, I want to add value.
00:18:35
Ken Freire
Absolutely. And for those of you who are thinking, how can I add value today? Just start looking around. And if anything, just ask your boss. Ask your boss that one question, right? What's a problem that's been keeping you up at night that I can go solve?
00:18:51
Ken Freire
And you'd be surprised what they say and go solve it.
00:18:54
Patrick
Yep, yep.
00:18:54
Ken Freire
Go make it happen. Start looking at these frameworks and start saying to yourself, hey, I'm going to go figure out a way to crush it for my company and for my team. With that, we will leave you.
00:19:06
Ken Freire
i want to encourage you to keep fighting the good fight and making sure that you understand how this works. And then next week, we will start talking about...
00:19:15
Patrick
We're going to dive into the nuts and bolts of the actual conversation. Maybe you thought this was today, so maybe we gave it a little bit too much of a hype. We're getting into the annual performance review, talking about comp, talking about salary bumps, pay pay adjustments, role adjustments. So stay with us for the next episode, and we'll dive in deep. Thanks so much.