Rob PArson at Morgan Stanley

Paul Nasr, a senior MD in Capital Market Services at Morgan Stanley (hereafter referred to as MS) is facing the challenging question of how to effectively handle Parson’s annual performance review without creating a vacancy in an irreplaceable area that was difficult to perform and had seen a tremendous amount of turnover at MS. Nasr had the fear of losing Parson, his valuable employee and a star producer if he was not promoted to Managing Director as promised by Nasr during his hiring. Rob Parson, Principal, Capital Market Services (CMS) had played a critical role in making significant gains in building MS’s revenue and reputation. Parson was an outstanding individual contributor, who in his sincere, relentless attempt to generate more business, had created a hostile environment around him by going against the norms and culture of the organization.
MS’s environment and mission statement was of teamwork, innovation, building consensus and treating employees with dignity and respect. However, there was no formal training for new employees regarding MS’s culture, expectations and performance evaluation (PE) process.
Next, there were several biases and blind spots in the PE process. The 360° performance evaluation appeared to be a very shallow process, and there was no consensus on how to implement a decision based on PE and how to use the PE under various circumstances. Instructions and training on how to make effective performance assessment was not provided to the managers. There was no definite internal validity/reliability measure of the PE, leading to personal biases. Questions were not specific and focused on the job function of the employee. Although, Parson’s colleagues and seniors had described him to be volatile, cocky, abrasive, overbearing, and insincere and “not a team player”, strong examples to site his strengths and weakness were missing.
Also, the 360° evaluation process was not customized to special situations where one may have to contribute