OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Symbolic Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the symbolic frame
2. Apply the symbolic frame 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.

At Media AZ, I was in the sales department as an Account Executive. Our team

consisted of Sales Admin beneath me, and Senior Account Executives above me. Each

Account Executive was teamed up with a Senior AE which we partnered up together to

manage our clients’ projects. We had a book of business which consisted of keeping

Enterprise relationships as our sales process was often lengthy with the same clients. We

were the liaison between our clients and all internal departments throughout the life of the

project.

Like so many organizations, when the pandemic hit the dynamic in the office really

changed. This was mainly due to leadership and their extreme opinion surrounding

COVID-19, or in their opinion the lack of its significance. This was a sore topic for most of

the sales team and even throughout the office and became extremely uncomfortable once

one of our colleagues lost their spouse due to COVID. Though the entire management

team, who was not practicing safe measures in meetings or the office, broke out with the

illness over the same week, it was still discussed at length in meetings how none of them

contracted it in the office. This is about the time the leadership group really started to lose

me as an invested employee. I cannot stand by an organization who lacks common

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 business ethics.

Leadership continued to criticize those who wanted to work from home and spoke

negatively about our work performance saying it could not be done to its quality when we

were not at the office, even though we closed 2020 out with a record year. “Unless you can

step back and see how system dynamics create these patterns, you muddle along blindly,

unaware of better options,” (Bolman & Deal, pg. 35). The combination of poor leadership

and tight reigns on our work attendance and arrogant leadership they started to lose a lot of

their team members, especially in sales. A supportive and growth fostering set of company

core values should be the priority, and trust in the leadership team is where it should start

though sadly at Media AZ that just was not the environment they cultivated.

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

In hindsight I now realize that lack of the organizations symbol influenced this situation

at a large scale. I believe this because when I started at the company, I heard squabbling’s

about the leader’s egotistical behavior though I mistook it as internal drama and thought it

would not be that bad. Media AZ did have Core Values published and some of the leaders

stood by them transparently, but other leadership used them for more of a sales tool to look like

we were doing all the right things or as if they were optional.

Towards the end of my tenure the HR department got wind of the importance of an

organizations story as well as having a Symbol Frame that focuses on ways humans display

meaning, belief, and faith to create a culture around themselves. Unfortunately, while

leadership was ecstatic about this the team felt that it was simply a band aid on a tarnished

culture and there was more that needed to be done before throwing out a symbol that now the

team was to embody and carry with them going forward. It was a silver dog tag that said a

positive word in the Greek language, sadly I do not remember what it was, but that was another

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thing that confused the team as they could not understand why our company chose a word in

Greek as our symbol to embody. Overall, it was a major failure.

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

We know that every organization embodies core values, routines, celebrations, and

story of how they started which guides the employee’s environment and ultimately who it

attracts to join the team. The benefit of the Symbolic Frame is that it focuses on ways

humans display meaning, belief, and faith to create a culture around themselves. I would

have proven a symbol by allowing people to see and understand events for the symbolic

interpretation as they create unity and add meaning (good or bad) to the culture of an

organization. Processes and events are held with higher understanding and purpose when

they are linked to a likeminded vibe in the group. Leadership should use the opportunity of

setting up their symbol to further clarify their why, name an ethical leader, take note of their

own values, and state then tell the company’s vision to create a desirable culture which

external members will see and become motivate to join.

This message also helps explain that when individuals are seeking a new profession or

to join an organization, they should equally find the companies found to ensure it aligns

with theirs personally before investing in a wrong fit for themselves personally. The value

is truly twofold as it saves a lot of pain and heartache for the company and the candidates as

they should have done their homework in advance. If that is done, a candidate can apply

confidently knowing where the organization stands through transparency and do so

understanding that by joining you plan to embody oneself in a similar mindset immersed in

its efforts for the good of the whole.

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 Another import part of the symbolic frame is to recognize the qualities of the

organization and what motivates its team progress. I am a firm believer in Bolman &

Deal’s belief that the relationship they create employees and fellow management are

equally as important as ensuring positive productivity and metrics are met. Bolman & Deal

describe the Symbolic Frame as a foundational resource for all organizations. It focuses on

the values of the group through their unique background stories and creates a culture to

support forward movement of its vision. Members who wholeheartedly believe in these

things become a part of it and when new peers join this team they are welcomed through the

same care and traditions that have already been adopted. This creates immediate unity and

clarity, giving purpose to the goals that make create collaboration.

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

Through my experience I can attest those cultures who have a bitter, lost, and undriven

team is ultimately often created by a lack of leadership and Symbolic Frame

implementation. Unfortunately, the team I was part of at an earlier employer who tried to

create the symbol while I worked for them and though leadership was invested in this

positive change, they were never able to gain the buy in from our team, so it essentially

flopped. I believe this was because the symbol was set up as an effort to fix an already

poor culture, so it felt more like a coverup to disguise it instead of what needed to be done

first which was to repair the current damage to the company’s morale and then create its

symbol.

In this situation I believe the leaders had the right idea to work with a media company

and create the story as well as a symbol, though they failed to own the booming issue at

hand and did not speak transparently about their vision of understanding our pain points and

the vision of an improved path to repair it, if they had the launch would have gone much
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smoother. I also would have chosen a symbol that was a direct reflection of the

organization and its teams’ qualities so that it spoke to the story of the company verses a

word engraved in a dog tag in a language none of us spoke. I realize the word sounded

prettier in Greek but truthfully that does not matter to a team who is already feeling

frustrated by poor leadership and unclear expectations internally.

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 Reference or References

BOLMAN, L. E. E., & Deal, T. (2017). Reframing organizations. John Wiley &

Sons.