OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

1)Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

I was working for a small security company that specialized in security system installations in

homes and small businesses. I was a low skill laborer that was mostly tasked with carrying tools and

pulling wires through walls to where they needed to go when we were doing bigger jobs. My manager

agreed to do a job that required months of work that was two and a half hours away. Due to the travel

time and lack of boarding near the worksite approximately four hours of work could be done in a day

with a crew of three. This was project was added to an already full workload. With a deadline looming in

three months how were we going to accomplish this job?

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

Within the Valley Security business we had a boss structure. That meant that the business owner’s

son had almost unilateral control of every decision made for the business. This lead to problems when he

didn’t ask for counsel or advice when making important business decisions. The book Reframing

organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership makes the weaknesses of this structure quite apparent:

“Circumstances that are more complicated or volatile can overload the boss, producing delays or

bad decisions, unless the person in charge has an unusual level of skill, expertise, and energy. Subordinates

quickly become frustrated with directives that are late or out of touch.” (Deal & Bolman, 2021 pg.102)
This was exactly the situation with my manager. Us subordinates became frustrated with his decisions

that were not in touch with reality. If he was not given unilateral control of the business, the decision to

take on such a difficult task would have been avoided entirely.

3) Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action

regarding your case.

I think that there was a misunderstanding of what the actual working structure was in the business

vs the perceived structure. From the outside it might look like there was a boss who gave out instructions

and us the subordinates listened to and obeyed those instructions. In reality very little of this boss

structure was used in the business day to day. Usually the manager speicalized in installing security alarms

and making house calls to trouble shoot problems. The other employee named Ethan specialized in

security camera installations. And even though I was the low skilled employee I was still given separate

responsibilities having to do with fire extinguishers. We as employees rarely worked together and only

collaborated when one of us needed extra help. Even though we had a very lateral structure when it came

to responsibilities, the manager treated the business like a boss structure despite having very little to do

with our day to day work. I thought a good metaphor for this structure was represented in the same book

Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership:

“All‐star player Pete Rose once noted, “Baseball is a team game, but nine men who meet their

individual goals make a nice team”. In baseball, as in cricket and other bat‐and‐ball games, a loosely
integrated confederacy makes a team. Individual efforts are mostly autonomous, seldom involving more

than two or three players at a time.” (Deal & Bolman, 2021, pg. 106)

Furthering the metaphor we can say the manager thought he was a coach on a Football team when

on reality he was on a baseball team. This different structure required limited collaboration and was not

primed for a mass team project. If the manager’s leadership style reflected the structure of the business, I

think more communication would’ve occurred and hopefully better decisions would have been made.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned

about this frame.

If I could do it differently I think I would’ve suggested we use a different leadership structure that

more closely resembled our working day-to-day structure. While looking at this weeks readings I saw one

that more closely resembled the baseball metaphor I mentioned earlier:

“A fourth option is a circle network, where information and decisions flow sequentially from one

group member to another. Each can add to or modify whatever comes around. This design relies solely on

lateral coordination and simplifies communication. Each person has to deal directly with only two others;

transactions are therefore easier to manage.” (Deal & Bolman, 2021, pg.104)

I think implementing this kind of structure would help us communicate more efficiently and more

appropriately represents how we interacted and collaborated with each other. Using this structure meant

everyone would be able to state what they would be capable of attributing and give an opinion of what
would be possible. I’m not sure if anything I would’ve said would have changed the situation, but I’m

glad that if I ever see this situation again, I will know how to approach it.
 References

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

(7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass