OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and 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) Describe your organization.

Starbucks is a major coffee company, known for how it treats people. The focus is the human
connection that a cup of coffee can provide. Consistently, they look to staff stores with friendly
people who want to get to know the customers. Because of the environment that Starbucks
strives to provide, their locations can become an important part of a neighborhood. It is a
company that not only treats its customers well, it focuses heavily on the livelihood of their
employees. Because of this reputation, Starbucks has significant brand loyalty, and has been able
to be very consistent in its success. 

2) Describe how Describe your role in the organization (it can be internal or
external).

I have worked for Starbucks for six years. I am currently a shift supervisor, and I have goals of
becoming a Store Manager after college. Before I was hired there, I was a regular at my
neighborhood store for most of my life. 

3) Describe the situation. (see the Canvas instructions for details, especially
about how your situation will be analyzed from five different perspectives over the
next five modules)

In 2015 Starbucks decided to start a campaign focused on starting a national conversation about
race, called Race Together. Senior management asked baristas in all locations to prompt
conversations about race, and racial inequality in the United States. They provided stores with
stickers that said Race Together, and a list of questions to ask customers, in order to start the
conversations that company leadership wanted to see happen in their stores. This was a very
abrupt campaign, and some people did not understand the reasons behind Starbucks wanting to
take this initiative. 

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At the location I worked at, we were a mostly white staff in a mostly white neighborhood. We
had one employee of color, and this campaign put him in the spotlight. Management in my store
was apprehensive and after a single day decided that us employees were not going to be asked to
continue to try to initiate these conversations. Quickly, Starbucks called off this campaign after it
did not receive positive feedback. This is a clear example of how “organizations are ambiguous”
(2017, p.33). It can sometimes be hard to understand the motivations behind the goals that an
organization wishes to take on. However, it is really important to look at these examples to learn
how to not make the same mistakes again. 

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 Reference

Bolman, L. G. (2017). REFRAMING ORGANIZATIONS. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.