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PCA – Structural Frame

Megan Miller

Department of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Arizona State University

OGL 481: Pro-Seminar I

Dr. Hess

October 6, 2020
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Structural Frame

I am the Leadership Development Specialist on the Leadership Development Training

Team at United Wholesale Mortgage Company where we are responsible for providing

leadership training to all levels of the company from team member up to C-suite leadership. In

March of this year our company, like many others, was faced with the harsh reality of COVID-

19. The 2020 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on much of the world and our training teams

have been faced with many difficult decisions regarding training protocols at work.

As a financial industry provider, we were considered an essential business and needed to

ensure compliance training and business continued as normally as possible. During this time, the

senior leadership team continued to meet and discuss issues associated with COVID-19, business

as a whole, and team members health and safety. However, there was a lack of communication

and transparency between the senior leadership team and the team members that unfortunately

led to a misguided press release in August. This release included COVID-19 positive test

numbers for our team members, however over half of the positive results were from team

members who had not stepped foot into the office since March. This lapse in communication

contributed to a culture of distrust and fear amongst many team members.

Structure of the Organization

In our organization there is a regimented structure of leadership in place. Starting with

executive leadership, we have 15 executives who oversee various lanes in the company. Each

executive has various senior vice presidents (SVP) reporting to them, followed by vice presidents

(VP) reporting to the SVPs. The chain continues with Assistant Vice Presidents (AVP) reporting

to VPs, and Team Leaders (TL) reporting to AVPs. At the bottom level of the company are all of

the employees, yet regardless of title, we are all referred to as team members (TM).
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Structure: EVP-SVP-VP-AVP-TL-TM

There are different variations of this within the company, however this is a standard chain of

command structure that can be seen throughout the different lanes.

Every Monday there is a senior leadership meeting that consists of all company leaders

holding the title of VP and above, along with a few other specialized roles. This results in

approximately 60 leaders meeting to quickly discuss and review weekly updates provided by

each lane. Consider though, our company has nearly 7,000 team members and only 60 leaders

are present in these weekly meetings. The idea is that after each meeting, those in attendance will

take back the information discussed and share it with the leaders who report to them, and the

information will continue to trickle down and by Monday afternoon all team members will have

been exposed to this information.

When all team members were working under one roof, this system tended to work quite

well and there were rarely any major communication issues associated with it. However, when

almost 97% of our team members transitioned to working from home, there quickly became

lapses in communication and what ultimately led to a press-release and warning from health

officials in the county after fearful team members had not received the most updated

information.

Although there was a task force created and senior leaders have continued to work around

the clock to ensure the building is clean and all safety and social distancing procedures are in

place, this wasn’t communicated to all team members. Rather, team members were left to

assume that this was a high priority. In addition, the company did not have a plan in place to

disclose in any information related to TM’s who did test positive for the virus. Again, TM’s felt

like this was the company being deceptive and some felt the need to reach out to the local health
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department ot come in and ensure proper protocols were in place. Thankfully, and as the senior

leadership team had known all along, the company was taking every action necessary to ensure a

safe and legal environment for TM’s to return to. It was however the lack of communication and

transparency that ultimately cost the company trust from their TM’s, negative public opinion,

bad press, and in the end, a handful of TMs’ who felt betrayed and hurt by the situation.

My Recommendation

Taking the structure frame into consideration, I think there are a few things that the

company could have done differently to ensure consistent communication efforts and greater

transparency throughout all levels of the company. When the pandemic started, I would

recommend publicly acknowledging the creation of a COVID-19 task force similar to a

restructuring of leadership. Since this was a situation that has truly never been seen before, there

was not a single person to turn to for guidance or advise on the issue. However, like a new leader

restructuring the company, the task force could have come in and made their plan known to the

company in it’s entirety, rather than continuing ot use the trickle down approach that was used

previously prior to the vast majority of TMs working from home.

In addition, the approach to leadership could have been modified slightly with an all-

channel approach to communication (Bolman & Deal, 2017, pg. 100). Although there is a great

system of hierarchy within our organization, at times this can feel like one-way communication.

During these unprecedented times, altering the leadership and communication style could have

led to more voices feeling heard and greater understanding from TMs when statements were

released. Adapting the all-channel approach would have increased the channels in which

communication was both received and sent out.

Reflection
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Although we are still in the midst of the pandemic, after reading about the structural

frame I am able to reflect on some changes I personally would have made regarding this

situation. One thing I would have done differently is to follow the structure that is in place a bit

more closely. I say this because our team is unique in design and therefore is given a lot of

flexibility and opportunities that other teams don’t necessarily have. Because of this, it makes it

difficult at times to find gaps in the system and pinpoint what other teams may be experiencing

because what we have, is so much different.

After realizing how important structure can be, I would also consider having a point

person for each specific lane. For example, we are a part of the training team, however we don’t

report to the training leader, we report directly to the Chief People Officer. Because of this, there

are times when we are the last to hear about a change or possibly the first to hear about it, but fail

to send the message on because the chain of communication isn’t always consistent. Establishing

a point person who is responsible for getting and sending out all COVID-19 related information

for each lane would have helped to create a more transparent structure.
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Reference:

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing  organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership

(6th ed.).San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass