Cait Ball

OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet
Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the four ethical communities
2. Apply the ethical communities to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

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

I am in an internal role as a shift supervisor at Starbucks. The situation is a meeting with

six co-supervisors, my manager, and a district manager. Recently, expectations have been
too high to be achievable, but punishments for not succeeding in these goals are harsh
and have resulted in bullying. Supervisors want to share concerns about the treatment,
beaureocracy of the store, and team morale in response to our managers' leadership style.
We are hopeful that a meeting will help alleviate pressure on baristas while at work and
alleviate a toxic environment for supervisors caught in the middle.

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

In Starbucks, there is a specific number for reporting any ethical concerns. It is called
"Business Ethics and Compliance." Its service is to hear situations that may not support
our missions and values. Our company's leadership is expected to uphold Starbucks'
mission and values, and if not, Business Ethics and Compliance are the ones who are
contacted. They had a big part in this situation. As we began to call ethics and
compliance, our situations were then handed over to the Partner Resources group to
evaluate and get back to us. I felt that Ethics and Compliance did not do what they
should, supposedly being an outside view and judge. They ultimately just handed over
any information back to Starbucks for evaluation.

During this time, it was ethics that my partners and I were most concerned with. Over the
course of about six months, there were over 20 HR cases. The system to hear complaints
from partners regarding ethics is to call the Ethics and Compliance, but as I said, this
information is just handed over to Partner Resources anyway. It felt like a middle man
that was not needed. Just as the political paper we did, Partner Resources got information

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 from the District manager while investigating, which quickly backfired. This made it so
the District Manager made excuses or put out any flame before any consequential action
was taken, and the investigation was closed on behalf of the District Manager. The
mission and values are said to be upheld, but in turn, are not fully investigated at every
level.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.

In this case, I would use an outside perspective to investigate, just like Ethics and
Compliance. However, I believe that they should investigate all together without the
politics involved. Each piece of information should be taken down as fact, rather than fact
according to who it is coming from. “Ethics ultimately must be rooted in soul: an
organization’s commitment to deeply rooted identity, beliefs, and values.” (Bolman,
2017) At the time of the situation stated in question one, this ethical community is a
“Jungle” charged by politics and self-interest. (Bolman, 2017)

This is not the healthy ethical philosophy for a company that serves a community and
takes pride in its care for customers and partners. It has lead to bad decision-making and
butt-covering at the cost of moral and team success. As a result, many partners lost trust
in their leadership and felt their mental health was slipping because of their work
environment and the toxicity it contributed to their daily life. A more appropriate ethical
community would be a “Family” community. This type focuses on care and love, using
servant-leaders in place to support its team and the customers. (Bolman, 2017) We
needed someone who would own up to mistakes and not shame us in asking questions or
slipping below perfection. We needed our jobs, and because of that, we tried our hardest,
but no compassion was given, and therefore, it built a dangerous environment for the
team, leaving them only one place to go; HR.

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

With what I have learned about ethics, I would not have done anything differently. A
meeting was necessary with my bosses, and it needed to happen while sitting in a neutral
place. It was my job to share my partners' concerns while being respectful and upholding
the mission and values of Starbucks. With the gift of servant leadership being love
(Bolman, 2017) being unfulfilled in my store, I knew I needed to fill that role if my
manager did not do this. It would not be ethical for my manager to be a bully and follow
her requests blindly because I would be doing the same as her.

I was not happy with this, and pushed back (respectfully) because I saw its toll on each
team member. If I had joined her mission and lead the way she requested me to, I would
have had HR cases against me as well, and I could not afford to lose my job. "If leaders
clutch power too lightly, they activate old patterns of antagonism."" (Bolman, 2017)

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 Starbucks encourages compassion amongst the team and toward our guests, we are not
living up to its mission and values if we are not lending compassion inward and outward.
My manager cared about the guests, but we were mere robots to her. I knew I was at risk
of losing my job either way and would have rather gone out knowing I did the right
ethical thing. I transferred out of store a few short months later, out of fear of job loss and
toxic work environments ignored by Ethics and Comliance, and Partner Resources.

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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.