OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

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

My situation is running a shift at Starbucks. I am a shift supervisor. The responsibilities

of a shift supervisor are acting as the manager on duty. This role contributes to Starbucks
success by assisting the store manager in executing store operations during scheduled
shifts. This role is responsible for partners and delegates tasks so that partners can create
and maintain the Starbucks experience. The situations that I have chosen to analyze stem
from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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

The structural frame focuses on the obvious ‘how’ of change. It’s mainly a task-
orientated frame. It concentrates on strategy. A poorly organized organization structure
can result in low productivity, less delegation of work, confusion among team members,
and a lack of cohesiveness among the team as a whole. My organization is influenced a
lot by policy changes and government regulations, I believe that the structure of my
organization is vertical.

The vertical structure is heavily influenced on authority, rules and policies, and
planning and control systems (Bolman & Deal, 2017). Though our organization is heavily
influenced by government and state regulations, I feel that during the COVID-19 our
leaders of our organization should have gone to bat for us and the organization.
According to Bolman & Deal (2017), the organization has taken the action approach to
planning during COVID-19, meaning the employees within our organization are told
specifically how to do things. The one negative to this, is that doing what we have been
told to do has caused issues with production. Because a lot of the regulations hinder how
we are allowed to go about working and increasing our daily production, a lot partners
organization are not motivated or committed to the organization. No matter the role you
are in at Starbucks, everyone works together towards a common goal.

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

As noted in the text, "falling victim to the one-best-system or one-size-fits-all mentality is

a route to disaster" (Bolman & Deal, 82). Anticipating problems and using the tools and
resources to respond, ensuring we are creating the experience and achieving goals. This
role is about building capabilities of our partners so they can work together to create the
best Starbucks experience. Structure is something that is important within any
organization, and it is imperative to an organization’s success. As for my organization, I
believe I would utilize lateral coordination.

Lateral coordination is less formal than vertical structures, but they utilize
meetings, tasks forces, coordinating roles, matrix structures, and networks (Bolman &
Deal, 2017). Though this structure could not necessarily change the impact regulations
have made on the industry, I believe it would boost the morale of the organization. I
would use lateral coordination to continue to host meetings via ZOOM with the
employees on all levels of the organization.

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

Given what I have learned about the structural frame, I would utilize latitude
coordination to help get the organization through the economic down-turn COVID-19 caused
and to help solve any confusion to the new COVID-19 prevention regulations. I like what
latitude offers an organization, though it may be costlier, the benefits I believe outweigh the
cons. 

Lateral organizations foster collaboration and work well in an environment that cannot
always be controlled (Bolman & Deal, 2017).I would utilize the lateral frame to instill our
partners trust back into our organization. The executives at the top of our hierarchical
structure have done a poor job at looking out for the guys who are responsible for making the
organization millions of dollars a day. If the organization cannot instill confidence and trust
into us, what does that say about the organization?

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 Reference or References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Structure and restructuring. In Reframing organizations:
Artistry, choice, and leadership (7th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

https://globalassets.starbucks.com/assets/f2f1c0c2ec434f08af5cfe40d6d57d26.pdf