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.

My situation included lack of communication, lack of resources and lack of

proper training all while undergoing major changes in processes within my work center
during the pandemic. During this time, I was a young staff sergeant barely out of Airman
leadership school, when I was appointed as the Non-Comissioned Officer of Infection
Control and the Dental Instrument Processing Center (NCOIC). My duties as the NCOIC
consisted of ensuring that all four of our clinic’s infection control compliance was rated
satisfactory on federal, state and local levels while also following the guidelines and
protocols of the Center’s of Disease Control and The Joint Commission. My job as the
NCOIC is essential to keep the clinics running and ensuring that Infection Control and
safety is the number one priority for our staff and our patients. My day to day
assignments included being tasked to conduct inspections and to also work in the
sterilization unit to ensure that dental instruments and materials were properly cleaned
and that bacterial spores were properly killed on reusable instruments. By accomplishing
my daily tasks our Group and Squadron are able to keep our clinics running and our
accreditations in order to run our clinical practices.

I started my journey by way of forfeiture and ineptitude of another It took about

two months to train me after my leadership had already assigned the prior NCOIC with
an administrative spot leaving me clueless of the prior process, because she could not
take on the stress of the job anymore. The job started off rough not only because I did
not have proper turnover, but because when I transitioned our department was
undergoing major rennovations and I learned lots of things via read and write as opposed
to hands on and visuals which is most of what the job entails, aside from the occasional
rsearch when needed. I struggled to adapt, because there was not many people who I
could ask for guidance, being that very few people within our Dental Group were ever
offered the opportunity of this postion. I had to start from scratch, reading almost every
policy I could find from what was left after the renovation; leaving things misplaced. I
could not imagine a more horrid time to be in a place so high visible, until the pandemic
hit. When the pandemic hit, I was the go to person for new protocols and clinical
guidelines and practices. I had barely sat in the seat until major taskers were placed in my
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 hand to come up with contingency plans due to manpower shortages. I did not have all
the tools to succeed or the leadership experience to accomplish a task so big. When I
reached out to my superiors my requests for more trainined staff in the sterilization unit
were left unanswered and our clinic went into half staff leaving my section staff to pick
up a lot of work for other clinics. Ultimately this lead to an issue and shortage of
processed and sterile instruments causing a shortfall in our appointments and patients
seen. Numbers and shortfalls, lead to my leadership finally taking me seriously about the
manning request and ultimately lead to a reevaluation of individuals who are properly
trained in sterilization processing and infection control. I felt like I was not able to get my
point across until the numbers were not adding up.

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

The military itself is an organization of great diversity, so there are bound to be

cases of missunderstanding and miscommunication. In my situation, I believe that the
common issue that served as a symbol towards influencing my situation was the top-
down culture and approach the military is known for. For the longest time in history, the
military has utilized a top down approach, until recently it has been attempting at
approach things in ways of continuous flow which includes of top-down and bottom-up.
Organizational symbols are components of a company's culture that are revealed under
various conditions (Boleman & Deal,2017)Although this is a step in a positive direction,
we still have a long way to go. It may take time to change a culture built upon, “ do as I
say”.
Our organization is comprised as a hierarchy structure made up of three tiers and
two separate ranking systems (Officers and Enlisted). I am an enlisted member and the
tier that makes up the enlisted structure includes the airman tier, the non-commisioned
officer (NCO) tier, and the senior non-commisioned officer tier (SNCO). As a new Staff
Sergeant or NCO, I followed the order’s of the SNCO’s. In my situation, there was no
give or take or a flow of top-down to bottom up communication, allowing me to give
feedback as to our processes not working during the pandemic. Because of this, our
mission ultimately came to a work stoppage and our numbers were not improving. I had
to do what was commanded of me and I had no place to input my thoughts on the new
schedule or process during Covid-19. Unfortunatley the SNCO’s above me were not used
to receiving feedback as they were brought up in a culture of “Do as I say, and do not
question it” era. Our team fell a part due to being overworked and underappreciated. The
felt like we were not being take care of and forgotten. “Example, not command holds the
team together (Bolemn & Deal, 2017)”.

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

Culture is a huge symbol within my organization and I believe the only way to
change something that is instilled within the minds of the leader’s above me is training
and consisitency. I think we need to re-evaluate our processes too. By reevaluating our

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 processes we can ensure that we have contingency plans in place. I believe that this all
goes back to understanding project quality management (pqm) and the benefits of putting
it to use.
Also something that we live by within the Air Force specifically is our core
values; Integrity first, service before self, and excellent in all we do. We need to reflect
on the values in all aspects, physical, spiritual, mental and emotional and also look at in
through the eyes of other individuals not just ourselves. We could have had a better
process and plan in place, but in order to get processes right, we have to take care of our
people. When we look at triple constraints within a project which include time, schedule
and scope; these three constraints are not important, if we throw a human aspect in there
and are now thinking about someones life. Overworking your people without considering
alternatives for our processes during one of the most health vulnerable times in history is
just worng.

Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.
The biggest thing I would have done differently is make my people be heard.
Listening is probably the most vital part to communication. People want to be heard!
Ensuring that all of the clinical flight chiefs had input on the matter would have helped
with our situations and possibly could have lead to better productivity. Opening the line’s
of communication and allowing other people’s feedback could have helped everyone in
my situation.
I would have also incorporated tools or processes for better communication.
Considering that my team was now split into two shifts, it was very hard to communicate.
There should have been clear and consise plans before finalizing the Covid-19 plans and
this should have been roled out to middle managers fist as opposed to just running with it.
Bringing it back to project quality management, ther three key elements for project
quality is quality planning, quality management or assurance and quality control. In this
instance through my situation we started planning off wrong and the other tow did not
fall into place either.

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 Reference

Bolman, L., & Deal, T. (2017). Reframing Organizations, 6th edition , Essay, Jossey- Bass.