9-Blocker Team Member Assessment
A practical framework for evaluating team member performance, values alignment, and behaviours. Used in 1:1s, appraisals, and coaching sessions to drive deeper, more meaningful development conversations.
The Number Is Not the Point
Most performance assessments fail not because leaders lack information, but because they skip the thinking. A number is assigned based on familiarity, likability, or recent memory rather than consistent, evidence-based reflection. The result is assessments that cannot be defended, comparisons that do not hold up, and development conversations that feel vague or personal rather than grounded and constructive.
The CoachStation 9-Blocker is built around a different principle. The score is the output of the thinking, not a replacement for it. Before a team member is placed anywhere on the grid, the leader must work through structured written commentary across all three assessment dimensions: Performance, Values Alignment, and Behaviours. That commentary is what makes the number meaningful.
Two or three honest, specific dot points written for each dimension will tell you far more than the number ever could. They force you to ask whether your assessment is based on evidence or impression. They reveal gaps in your observation. They prepare you to have a real conversation with the team member about where they sit and why, in language that is specific, fair, and useful.
This tool can be used as a leader assessing each team member, or given to team members to complete as a self-assessment. When both are done and compared, the conversation that follows is richer, more honest, and more productive than almost any other development interaction a leader and team member can have.
What This Tool Is Designed to Do
- Force depth before judgment. You cannot place a team member on the grid until you have written commentary for all three dimensions. The reflection comes first. The number follows.
- Build consistency across your team. When you use the same criteria and the same process for every person, your assessments become genuinely comparable rather than shaped by individual relationships.
- Give you language for the conversation. The written notes become your preparation for the 1:1. You arrive knowing not just where someone sits but why, with specific examples to support your view.
- Work as a self-assessment tool. Give this to your team members to complete about themselves before your review conversation. The gap between their self-assessment and yours is often the most valuable thing to explore.
- Track progress over time. Used quarterly, the tool builds a running record of how each person is developing across all three dimensions, not just whether their performance number has moved.
- Position within the block matters. Top-right of a block means strong within that category. Bottom-left means barely there. The auto-suggestion places people based on their scores but you can adjust the position to reflect your nuanced view.
The goal is not a number. The goal is depth of understanding, consistency of language, and the ability to articulate clearly to each team member why they sit where they sit and what specifically needs to change for that to shift. The 9-Blocker makes that conversation possible. The guided assessment below is what makes the 9-Blocker honest.
Understanding Each Block
Each of the nine blocks represents a distinct combination of performance level and values alignment. Understanding the characteristics and development opportunities for each block is essential for having a productive and honest conversation with each team member.
Exemplary Leader
Demonstrates exceptional performance and exhibits a strong alignment with personal and organisational values. Consistently delivers outstanding results and serves as a role model for others.
Opportunity: Provide leadership opportunities, secondments, and additional responsibilities. Recognise their contributions and actively consider future roles.
Valued Contributor
Consistently meets or exceeds performance expectations and demonstrates strong values alignment. Contributes effectively to team and organisational goals with reliability and commitment to excellence.
Opportunity: Provide professional growth opportunities, acknowledge contributions, and consider projects that capitalise on their skills and values alignment.
Potential Growth
Shows potential for growth and improvement with strong values alignment. Performance may not yet be at the level of others, but there is a genuine willingness to learn and improve.
Opportunity: Provide mentoring, coaching, and targeted development. Offer guidance and clear expectations to help them reach their potential.
Key Contributor
Consistently achieves high performance levels, but alignment with personal and organisational values is not fully developed. Results are strong but the how requires attention.
Opportunity: Engage in conversations to explore the reasons behind the misalignment and encourage values alignment through coaching and mentorship.
Reliable Performer
Demonstrates solid performance but exhibits some gaps in values alignment. Consistent and dependable, but with room to develop both performance and values demonstration further.
Opportunity: Engage in open communication and provide mentoring or coaching to align behaviours and decisions with personal and organisational values.
Coaching Opportunity
Requires guidance and coaching to improve performance and align personal values with organisational values. The intent is present but capability and consistency need development.
Opportunity: Provide clear expectations, constructive feedback, and targeted coaching to develop skills and align behaviour with personal and organisational values.
High Potential
Demonstrates high performance levels but exhibits misalignment with personal and organisational values. A high-risk profile if left unaddressed, as the impact on culture can be significant.
Opportunity: Engage in open dialogue, clearly communicate values expectations, and explore strategies to align behaviour and decisions with the desired values.
Role Redefinition
Performs at a satisfactory level but shows significant misalignment with personal and organisational values. The current role may not be the right fit.
Opportunity: Reevaluate their role and responsibilities. Consider whether a different position or realignment of responsibilities could better utilise their skills.
Performance Concern
Struggles to meet performance expectations and exhibits misalignment with personal and organisational values. This combination requires direct, structured intervention.
Opportunity: Provide targeted performance improvement plans, clear expectations, and ongoing support. Consider additional training with specific timelines and targets.
Understanding the Three Assessment Dimensions
The 9-Blocker measures three distinct dimensions. Each plays a different role and together they provide a far more complete and actionable picture of a team member than performance metrics alone.
Performance
Performance refers to an individual's ability to achieve set goals and objectives while meeting or surpassing predefined standards. This encompasses task completion, meeting deadlines, achieving quantitative targets, and delivering results within expected parameters.
Competencies and skills are also assessed, including the level of expertise, knowledge, and abilities an individual possesses to perform their role. Communication skills, teamwork, leadership, and innovation all contribute to a complete performance picture.
Values Alignment
The Y-axis assesses elements such as integrity, accountability, respect, autonomy, and professionalism. Values-based assessment emphasises the importance of ethical conduct and compliance, fostering a positive and supportive work culture.
Ultimately, you are assessing both personal values and alignment to organisational values. The awareness and demonstration of an individual's own values, and to what degree they encourage and live the organisation's values, is what this dimension captures.
Behaviours
Behaviours overlay both motivation and performance. At CoachStation, we encourage the view that how we get there is at least as important as the result. When you focus on the input, there is opportunity to manage and influence the results and outputs.
We believe behaviours underpin all other measurements and are the inputs that affect the outputs. It is who they are and how they do the work.
Two people may both achieve their objectives, but one may have used more positive behaviours. This dimension is assessed out of 10 using the behavioural assessment key below.
12 Behaviours for Assessment
The following behaviours provide a base to work from when assessing members of your team. Include any other behaviours that have been set as expectations or are included in the relevant position description. These descriptions provide a baseline of thinking and analysis, which is the core to this tool being effective.
1. Integrity
Acting with honesty, ethics, and moral principles. Being truthful, keeping promises, maintaining confidentiality, and adhering consistently to ethical standards.
2. Accountability
Taking responsibility for one's actions, decisions, and outcomes. Owning mistakes, learning from them, fulfilling obligations, and accepting the consequences of one's choices.
3. Respect
Treating others with dignity, fairness, and courtesy. Valuing diverse perspectives, listening actively, showing empathy, and fostering a positive and supportive work environment.
4. Professionalism
Maintaining a high standard of behaviour and appearance. Being punctual, reliable, communicating effectively, and displaying a positive attitude toward work and colleagues.
5. Collaboration
Working effectively with others toward shared goals. Active participation, open communication, willingness to compromise, and fostering teamwork and win-win outcomes.
6. Adaptability
Being flexible and open to change. Embracing new ideas, adjusting to shifting priorities, learning from experiences, and proactively seeking opportunities for growth.
7. Excellence
Striving for continuous improvement and delivering high-quality work. Setting high standards, attention to detail, seeking feedback, and consistently delivering exceptional results.
8. Initiative
Taking proactive steps to drive positive change beyond assigned responsibilities. Identifying problems, proposing solutions, being self-motivated, and actively adding value.
9. Empathy
Understanding and considering the feelings, perspectives, and needs of others. Active listening, showing compassion, seeking to understand, and fostering an inclusive environment.
10. Work-Life Balance
Striving for a healthy integration of work and personal life. Setting boundaries, managing time effectively, prioritising self-care, and promoting a culture that supports wellbeing.
11. Innovation
Encouraging creativity, problem-solving, and continuous improvement. Challenging the status quo, generating new ideas, embracing change, and promoting a culture of learning.
12. Customer and Stakeholder Focus
Prioritising the needs and satisfaction of customers or clients. Understanding requirements, providing excellent service, seeking feedback, and striving to exceed expectations.
Behavioural Assessment Key
The assessment key provides a rating scale for evaluating a team member's behaviours against the defined criteria. It allows for a fair and consistent assessment and helps identify areas of strength and areas that require improvement or development. Behaviours are assessed out of 10.
Interactive 9-Blocker Grid
The grid below shows where your team members sit once you have completed the guided assessment for each person. Position is calculated automatically from your scores and placed at the exact point within the block that reflects the nuance of where they sit. Click any block name to read its description. Click a placed marker to remove it.
CoachStation 9-Blocker Team Member Assessment
Team members are placed automatically once you complete the guided assessment below. Drag any marker to reposition within a block. Double-click a marker to remove it. Click a block name to read its description.
Use the guided assessment below to add team members. Each person's CoachBot prompt is available individually below, or use the Full Team Brief button above to send all team members to CoachBot at once.
Assess Each Team Member
Work through this guided process for each team member before placing them on the grid. You must complete written commentary for all three dimensions before a score is accepted. The commentary is the point. The score follows from it.
You can complete this as a leader assessing your team member, or share this page with them to complete as a self-assessment. When both are done, compare the results before your next 1:1.
Complete the assessment for one team member at a time. Once you reach the result step, click Copy to CoachBot and paste into CS CoachBot below to receive individual coaching guidance before moving on to the next team member. After assessing your full team, use the Full Team Brief button on the grid above for a collective team analysis.
Deepen Your Assessment With CoachBot
Once you have completed an assessment and clicked Copy to CoachBot, paste the prompt directly into CoachBot below. You will receive specific, evidence-based coaching guidance for each team member, drawing on your own written commentary and scores. Use the individual prompts one person at a time, or use the Full Team Brief for a collective analysis once your whole team has been assessed.
Download the Assessment Tools
Two resources are available to support your use of the 9-Blocker. The assessment template is used to plot and track your team. The notes and definitions guide provides the full framework detail for facilitators and leaders using the tool in coaching or review contexts.
9-Blocker Assessment Template
The printable team member performance evaluation grid. Use this to plot your team quarterly, track progress over time, and prepare for coaching and review conversations.
Download the TemplateNotes, Definitions and Facilitator Guide
A six-page guide covering how to use the tool, full definitions for Performance, Values, and Behaviours, all nine block descriptions and development opportunities, and the complete behavioural assessment key.
Download the Guide
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about the CoachStation 9-Blocker Team Member Assessment Tool and how leaders use it to build more honest, structured development conversations.
The 9-Blocker is a CoachStation assessment framework that evaluates team members across three dimensions: Performance, Values Alignment, and Behaviours. The result is a nine-block grid that gives leaders a structured, evidence-based picture of where each person sits and why. It is used in 1:1s, appraisals, and coaching sessions to move development conversations away from gut feel and toward specific, defensible observations.
Performance measures a team member's ability to achieve goals, meet deadlines, and deliver results, including their technical competence and communication skills. Values Alignment assesses integrity, accountability, respect, and professionalism, looking at how consistently a person's conduct reflects both their own values and the organisation's values. Behaviours overlay both dimensions and assess how a person goes about their work, recognising that how someone gets results is at least as important as whether they get them.
Most performance assessments fail because leaders assign a number based on familiarity, likability, or recent memory rather than consistent evidence. The 9-Blocker is built on a different principle: the score is the output of the thinking, not a replacement for it. Leaders must work through written commentary for all three dimensions before a position is placed on the grid. That commentary is what makes the number meaningful and what prepares the leader to have a real, specific, and fair conversation with the team member.
Yes, and this is one of the most valuable ways to use it. The tool can be completed by the leader as an assessment of their team member, or given directly to the team member to complete as a self-assessment. When both are done and then compared, the gap between the two perspectives is often the most productive thing to explore in the conversation that follows. It creates an honest, structured starting point rather than a top-down appraisal.
Each block represents a distinct combination of performance level and values alignment, ranging from Block 1 (Exemplary Leader: high performance, high values) through to Block 9 (Performance Concern: low performance, low values). Each block has a defined description and a recommended development response, giving leaders specific, contextually appropriate guidance rather than a generic number. The position within a block also matters: top-right of a block indicates strength within that category, while bottom-left signals the person is only just within it.
Used quarterly, the 9-Blocker builds a running record of how each team member is developing across all three dimensions over time, not just whether a performance score has moved. This frequency is enough to track meaningful change without becoming a burden. It also ensures that assessments are based on consistent and recent observation rather than impressions formed months ago or shaped by one recent incident.
The 9-Blocker works alongside the REOWM Accountability Model and CoachStation's 1:1 framework to give leaders a complete system for developing their team. REOWM sets the expectations and structures the accountability conversation. The 9-Blocker provides the structured reflection that informs where each person sits. Together, they replace vague appraisal processes with something specific, fair, and genuinely useful for both leader and team member. Book a discovery call to explore how to embed this in your leadership practice.
Ready to Have Better Development Conversations?
CoachStation works with leaders and organisations to embed tools like the 9-Blocker into a practical, consistent approach to developing their people. Let's start the conversation.
