Rob’s strong performance in many areas and clear superiority in specifically dealing with clients and bringing in new business demonstrate his unique strengths which make him an asset to the company. Since Capital Market Services in financial institution section is unique and demands aggressive and competitive professionals, it is unquestionable that the company wants to retain him. Promotion seems a natural choice to reward his achievements and encourage him to contribute more to the company. However, an immediate promotion may also put some negative impacts on the company’s culture and the effectiveness of the review process. After weighting the cons and pros, we decided that he should be given another year as a principal, to improve his communication and interpersonal skills, and then given another chance at the Managing Director promotion.

It is well known that a strong and unified culture is one of the key values of Morgan Stanley, they are not willing to maximize the business at the expense of their culture, teamwork and the integrity of the process. Once Nasr promotes Rob at this time, it will deliver a wrong signal to his fellow colleagues that aggressive and crude attitude, or other problems he has are acceptable and could be compromised if it means getting the job done. Managing Directors are at the top of the pyramid and as such have to be the “standard bearers” for all of the junior staff.

In the review process, Rob does show acknowledgement of this weakness, which is the first step towards improvement and demonstrates a work ethic in line with company policies. But this acknowledgement may be not specific; he has to receive detailed, benchmark-driven suggestions to improve his behavior by his direct supervisor. He should be given monthly guidelines and benchmarks to document his improvement in terms of softening aggressive behavior, improving direct communication, promoting patience and reorganizing deadlines and priorities so that he is able to meet his clients deadlines while still engaging his team.

We believe that with his insightful knowledge of client, market and product, and with his product-promotion skills, if he can work on his team skills to be more personable and more professional, Rob should be given another consideration for Managing Director. It is highly likely that after a comprehensive plan to encourage this change, he will thrive as a Managing Director.