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 the 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) Name and describe your organization.

My organization is the United States Navy. The navy is the seagoing branch of the armed
forces. Some of its responsibilities include keeping shipping lanes open and safe,
defending our country’s shores as needed, and conducting humanitarian missions around
the world. There is a chain of command that must be followed on every ship, aircrew, and
shore-base. Shore-based commands have many different responsibilities and the one I
will be discussing is charged with training sailors for their jobs in the fleet.

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

I am an Information Systems Technician Chief Petty Officer which is an internal position

in the U.S. Navy. A chief is a leader and a manager of sailors. Officers rely on chiefs to
lead sailors in order to complete tasks and missions. I had two major responsibilities
within the command; teaching information technology classes and leading a division of
11 sailors who teach eight different courses.

3) Describe the situation, including information you think will help the reader
understand the most important elements of the situation. (This will require
selectivity: part of the art of case writing is separating the essential facts from the
mass of information that might be included).

My mother unexpectedly passed away and over the next few months, my performance at
work was negatively affected. I still made sure that my sailors were taken care of, but one
of my other duties did not receive the attention it needed. During my semi-annual mid-
term review, my leadership told me that I was doing well and to keep up the good work.
Six months later when it was time for my official evaluation, the leadership told me that
my overall performance had declined leading to my performance scores falling from
where they were the previous year. During the evaluation, the senior enlisted leader

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 raised a few issues he had with me that could have easily been explained at the time they
occurred. This negative evaluation would make it so that I could not advance for at least
five years leading me to passionately arguing and confronting my leadership.