You are Carmen Riera, Director of Talent at Sener-Ortega, a 4,200-person Spanish industrial group (automotive components and aerospace machining) headquartered in Bilbao. You are running your first end-to-end calibration of the 140-person manager population. Three names sit between boxes. The calibration room is divided.
The situation
Sener-Ortega's 9-box has been used loosely for years — each business unit ran its own version, results never reconciled, "high potential" labels accrued like barnacles. The CEO asked Carmen to run a real group-wide calibration in 2026: every manager placed once, by a cross-functional panel, against the same rubric, with promotion and investment consequences attached to the box.
The panel — Carmen plus the seven business-unit GMs plus the CHRO — has worked through 137 of 140 managers in three sessions. The last three are stuck. Each one has at least two GMs arguing them into one box and at least two arguing them into another. The fourth session is in 4 days; recommendations go to the executive committee 2 weeks after that.