OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Symbolic Frame Worksheet

Kiana Knox

Arizona State University

Organizational Leadership Project Management

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.

The situation that I will be discussing is something I was not fully a part of but was

made aware of the situation. We had a coach that was coaching our pre-team kids and she

was coaching the kids unsafely and not following the schedule and lesson plan. She also

coached them at her own discretion. She was making promises to the kids and their

parents about things that were not true and telling them things that she should not have

said which it caused us to have a lot of angry parents. My role at Gold Medal Gymnastics

is to be one of the coaches and leaders of our rec program there. I am in charge of

managing my now class and teaching the kids new skills. I am also a part of the Devo

program at Gold medal which is just a different program that we have there. I also am in

 charge of teaching the new people we hire how we run and do things at Gold Medal or

for the people that have never coached before how to coach as well as spot kids. I am also

in charge of the Saturday crew and making sure everyone knows what they are doing and

everything is in order and solve any problems that come up on Saturday

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

At Gold Medal our mission is to inspire and teach the next generation and nor only

in gymnastics but life skills as well. We pride ourselves on making sure we are helping

kids now into the best gymnast and person they can be. This is what is apart and helps

build the culture we want to have plus many more factors. Now the coach that was at

fault here, I know she wasn’t coming from a bad place when she made those decisions,

she was just trying to help inspire and grow that group of gymnast just went about it the

wrong way. We also have a very inspiring story that goes along with our gym and its the

owners story, Amanda Borden who was apart of the first ever USA gold winning team for

gymnastics and the story that is told to everyone, including new hires is her journey to the

olympics cause it’s not a typical journey. Having this amazing g story that backs up what

we believe in I believed also influenced the situation because these groups of girls are not

our tops gymnast and aren’t naturally gifted but amanda’s story shows that anything is

possible with a little hard work and dedication so if she can do it why can’t these girls do

it with a little bit of direction.

Our facility is also massive. In 2020 we bought our the business that was next to us

and tore down the wall that divided the building up and turned the whole thing into a

 gymnastics facility. When I was reading about the symbolic frame and how it is similar to

a theater, I was able to relate my situation perfectly (Bolman, 2021, chap. 14). Since we

have so much room and plenty of mats to be used she felt that she dint have to follow the

schedule because there will be room somewhere, which yes, we do have a lot of space

now but we still have at least 20-30 classes and groups of gymnast working all day long

and those groups follow a specific schedule and every area is being used at every hour.

So by thinking since we have all this space I can do as a please really mad the situation

worst and caused other groups to be effected by this as well.

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

Something I read about from the book in chapter fourteen was about meetings and

how they are considered by some people “garbage cans” (Bolman, 2021, chap. 14). At

my work we have meetings about every little things and the course of action when this

situation happened right away was to schedule a meeting with the coach and a meeting

with the parents. When they describe why meetings are like garbage cans it actually

makes sense because they are like magnets attracting the problems, looking for

something to do and search for solutions for those problems (Bolman, 2021, chap. 14).

Now its tricky because with this situation there is not much more you can do then have a

meeting but I would recommend we find another course of action to have in place instead

meetings in the future.

This frame is a but tricky regarding different course of action because it’s all about

the culture you build, the symbols, myths, stories you have created to represent your

 organization. The other thing I would recommend is instead of firing her maybe demotion

her to a lower position to take away some of that power she took advantage of and give

her a second chance. Now they dint fire her because they believe in second chances, she

actually quit a week later but let's say they did fire her, I would recommend that course of

action instead and see if that is a better fit first before firing her.

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

I really enjoyed getting to learn about this frame and feel I have gained a lot of

knowledge from this weeks focus on the symbolic frame. I don’t know ifs there is much I

would do differently regarding what this frame represents because I feel building a

culture like we have is crucial for a business to strive. With this culture that we have build

it has helped us all become part of a big family and we are such a close group that it

makes working easier, more fun and makes our job more enjoyable. Also, we host a lot of

meets, parties and events and that helps not only get our name out there but what we

represent and I feel it’s important for people to know what we stand for so they can

decide if they want to be apart of our team/family or not. Even though I think meetings

should try and be avoided more I feel the best course of action was to schedule a meeting

so all the issues could be addressed and a solution could hopefully be found.

What I would do differently is when hiring new people is keep in mind the eight

tenets of the symbolic frame that help create a group or team because those are import

aspects to have and look for when creating a team and them leading them. I would also

have all new hires art at from the beginning. I feel when you just throw people into a high

 position of power from when they get hired this might backfire on you because they

might not have fully bought into what we as a team believe in and do things their way.

You need to see and learn how they work and they also should have to earn a hire

position not just it handled to them because power can go to their head which is what

happened in this situation.

I would also schedule way less meeting and cut down on the planning in some

aspects. We plan out every little thing which I have always felt is importnat but after

reading about it in the chapters, it might now have that big of an effect as we believe it

does. I would let the coaches have more freedom but to an extent and instead of writing

out a lesson plan for them, have them know the exact skills that level needs and give

them the choice to work and learn those skills with drills and other ways of teaching it

that’s they know. I feel this might help in the long run because since they are already

given a little bit of freedom they might not break out and look for it themselves.

 Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership.
Jossey-Bass.