Raise-Maintain-Lower Team Bar Test
Classify talent by how each person changes the team’s performance standard.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 98%
This talent model evaluates an employee by asking what would happen if everyone on the team operated at that person’s level. If collective performance would improve, the person is a bar raiser and should generally receive greater responsibility or promotion. If performance would remain unchanged, the person is maintaining the existing standard and is a candidate for focused coaching. If performance would deteriorate, the person is lowering the bar and may need firm intervention or removal. The counterfactual shifts attention away from isolated output and toward the standard each individual normalizes for colleagues. Used carefully, it creates a repeatable classification that links observed impact to a differentiated management response.
Origin
Steven Bartlett described the model during his Inbound presentation, including a CEO who applied the same distinction. Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain.
Core principles
- 01Evaluate people by their effect on the whole team, not activity alone.
- 02Use a consistent counterfactual to expose each person’s cultural impact.
- 03Promote bar raisers, coach maintainers, and manage out persistent bar lowerers.
- 04Treat team standards as consequences of tolerated behavior.
How to run it
- 1
Define the Relevant Bar
Clarify the performance and behavioral standards required for the role and team. Include both results and the way those results are produced.
Pro tip Use several observed behaviors rather than relying on one recent outcome.
Watch out A vague or biased standard will make every later classification unreliable.
- 2
Run the Level-Set Question
Imagine every team member matching the selected person’s performance and conduct. Ask whether the team would improve, remain stable, or decline.
Pro tip Consider effects on quality, pace, reliability, and colleagues—not just individual output.
Watch out Do not confuse visible busyness with a positive effect on the team.
- 3
Classify the Effect
Place the person in the raise, maintain, or lower category according to the counterfactual result. Record the evidence supporting the classification.
Pro tip Reassess across multiple projects before finalizing borderline cases.
Watch out Do not turn the categories into permanent identity labels.
- 4
Match the Management Response
Promote or expand the scope of bar raisers, coach maintainers, and intervene with bar lowerers. Set a review point to see whether the response changes the classification.
Pro tip Give maintainers a specific target showing what raising the bar would look like.
Watch out Keeping a persistent bar lowerer signals that the lower standard is acceptable.
In the wild
Bartlett described employees who raise the team’s bar, keep it where it is, or lower it. The proposed responses were promotion, coaching, and managing out respectively, with the decision grounded in what would happen if the entire team matched that employee’s performance.
→ The model turns an ambiguous talent judgment into a consistent counterfactual and response.
One host went home and mapped his own team using the three categories. Rather than asking whether each person seemed busy, he considered how the whole team would perform if everyone matched that person’s standard.
→ He obtained a clearer view of who warranted development, greater responsibility, or intervention.
Common mistakes
Judging From One Incident
A single success or failure may not reveal the standard a person consistently creates across the team.
Ignoring Context
Different roles contribute in different ways, so the comparison must reflect the person’s actual responsibilities and constraints.
Classifying Without Responding
The model loses value if leaders identify bar raisers or lowerers but make no corresponding promotion, coaching, or performance decision.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for managers making promotion, coaching, hiring, or performance-management decisions.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for snap judgments made without sufficient evidence or for roles whose contributions cannot fairly be compared on one performance dimension.
From the transcript
“You are either someone who raises the bar, and for that person, he tries to promote them. You are someone who just keeps the bar…”
“And then what he asked himself is if we level set the entire team to that person's performance, does the team go up, stay the…”
From the episode
Steven Bartlett’s Exact Framework To Get +35 Million Downloads A Month (#155)