OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Politcal Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the political frame
2. Apply the political frame to your personal case situation

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

Every year my corporation completes an anonymous Employee Survey. This

survey asks all the non-management employees to anonymously answer questions in
regards to major issues that large corporations face. Topics such as performance
management, competencies, recruiting the right talent, retention, and communication.
Management is provided the results to review with the team and facilitate candid
conversations about these results. During the conversation, the management team was
met with mostly silence and vague responses to how they could improve these scores.
Something I noticed after was that over the past few years my management had scored
low on a few of the categories consistently. As a part of my professional development I
asked if I could review the scores and create an improvement plan that I could present to
management. Currently I work in the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) organization
as a Product Data Management (PDM) Specialist. As a lead within my organization I
believe I can work with the leadership team as well as my peers to develop a solution to
the low performance scores that will benefit all members of our organization.

2) Describe how the politics of the organization influenced the situation.

When I first began my career, I was always told by my management to “play the
game”, initially I thought this just meant get your tasks done and eventually you’ll
succeed. After a few years, I learned it meant to play the political game of the
organization. I was intrigued by this module’s chapters and their ability to really put into
perspective this quote I had heard numerous times. I learned that the political frame is
focused on addressing the issues of employees developing or having conflicting agendas,
especially when resources are limited. This frame is not focused on politics, but rather the
interdependence, power relations, divergent interests, and scarcity of resources that create
political activity. After reading the three chapters and then analyzing how my
organization was influenced by politics, all I could picture was a Roman arena where the
leadership team was overseeing the employees’ contests of individual interests versus
their own.

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 Looking at my specific situation, politics were most prominent in the section
regarding stress caused by work. The primary cause of stress based off the survey was
regarding toxic work environments caused by office politics. All of my studies have
shown that there is no way to get around office politics, but understanding what office
politics are impacting my team is now one of my top priorities during my project. During
this module, I learned that many organizations use employee surveys to understand and
address the various office politics causing depleted employee morale, meaning my
situation is directly related to the politics of the organization. For example, one of my
teammates commented that when an undeserving employee who had very minimal time
on the team and lacked the skills needed was granted a promotion, it infuriated them. The
comment was brought up during the team meeting and many spoke out to why they
believed the unnamed individual was given the promotion and the common theme was
that they sucked up to management and played the game. The employee survey showed
the employees concerns of rumor mongering, duplicity, favoritism and that secret plans
were underway were now out in the open. Management now has to find a way to validate
their decisions while containing and controlling the concerns to reflect a positive outlook.

3) Recommend how you would use organizational politics for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

Office politics are a fact of life in regards to the work place, however navigating
them in the least damaging way is the key. When looking at organizational politics it is
important to remember that employees are merely trying to gain control of their careers.
Using the open and candid conversation our organization had in regards to the concerns
brought by an anonymous individual, we were able to begin meeting with the team
individually to establish what success looks like to them. Once we established what each
team member was focuses on long term we were able to narrow down how to navigate
and manage their concerns. Many felt they were more qualified than others on their team
and merely wanted to know that management saw their efforts. Using this feedback, we
asked the team to determine what management could do to show their appreciation and
express that their efforts were seen. The data we gathered was that many appreciate cash
awards, emails with management or leadership copied expressing gratitude, and verbal
appreciation during staff meetings or in front of other team members. I was very
interested to see that some members preferred their appreciation privately to help them
avoid the office politics and rumors.

In my opinion, I think the employee survey is of great benefit to the

management and leadership team. They can utilize this information to have open
conversations with their team members individually to truly understand how to halt office
rumors and show gratitude for their efforts. I am not recommending an alternative course
of action but think that the management team as well as the leadership team should focus
more on the comments provided and truly look at the results in order to make changes.

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 When reviewing the survey collectively as a team my manager discussed why he thought
he scored low in some areas and what upper leadership should do in order to see changes
but never truly addressed the concerns with his actions and how he planned to make a
positive change. One of the concerns I plan to bring up with management this week and
see what actions they have already taken and if none, what actions we can focus on in
order to see an improvement prior to this year’s employee survey.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

In regards to my situation I do not believe anything needed to be done differently

in the execution of the employee survey, but rather the reactions or lack thereof. During
this module, I learned that the political frame is focused on addressing the issues of
employees developing or having conflicting agendas, especially when resources are
limited. Right now, across the world we are seeing this pandemic take its toll on
businesses, resulting in limited resources and high tensions. This pandemic will really
bring out an organizations dirty laundry so I think it is perfect time to investigate this
frame in relation to my organization. While this frame is not focused on politics, but
rather the interdependence, power relations, divergent interests, and scarcity of resources
that create political activity, it seems quite fitting that many of the irritable discussions
occurring in the office are based off politics. Helping the management and leadership
team to bring to develop an action plan and follow through on that plan is my goal.

While this pandemic is hopefully temporary one thing I want to push to

management is the importance of being flexible. Being able to understand, switch
between, as well as combine the frames depending on the issues arising in the
organization is important to success. Though being too flexible with the frames and
jumping from frame to frame could be disastrous when the organization needs firm
guidance. I want to push for the management and leadership team to revisit what they’ve
learned or even study the political frame to help the team navigate this rough economical
time. I do believe utilizing the employee survey and all of the comments and concerns
provided by the team will help the managers to build a better relationship with their
employees. As stated, I don’t believe anything needs to change in regards to the
execution of the employee survey with regards to the political frame but my focus is now
to ensure the management teams see how detrimental it can be if ignored.

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 Reference or References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass