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.

During my time as a server at Table 22 (a fine dining restaurant), a staffing/management issue

arose where many people quit or were fired in a short period of time. The restaurant was
understaffed and the employees were overworked, with many people working weeks at a time
without a day off. The staff felt very tired, unappreciated and taken advantage of. One of the
owners, Darren, was not honoring people’s requested time off and scheduled hours of training on
top of our already scheduled hours, and generally did not respect their employees. During this
time, the owners/ management also fired several people because they had refused to come in on
their scheduled day off, leaving us even more understaffed than before. Despite the manager's
efforts to hire more staff, more people quit, some people quit within their first week of being
hired. Overall, the morale of the team was very low and Table 22 was left with a small,
inexperienced staff during their busiest time of year.

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

When thinking about this situation through the symbolic frame, it is challenging for me to think
of specific, positive symbols presented in the organization. With that being said, I think that a
lack of symbols had a large influence on the situation. Symbols can unify people and motivate
them in their work – a lack of symbols can create a lack of team bonding and commitment to the
organization. I think part of the reason people were not committed to Table 22 was because there
were no symbols that would cause employees to feel a sense of dedication to the company such
as ceremonies or celebrations.

The primary symbol of the company that was beneficial or motivational for employees was
money and tips. Doing a good job meant making more money. This symbol helped foster
teamwork because the entire team was needed in order to perform well. We all helped one
another and worked as a team because we all wanted to make more money. Overall, most of the

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symbols that the restaurant had were geared towards the patrons of the restaturant as Table 22
was very concerned about their image in the public eye. Symbols such as our décor, menu and
our dining environment attracted and united customers, but did very little for the employees.

The culture of the organization overall was a mixed bag. While the culture of the leadership had
a negative impact on the staff, there was a different culture among the employees that created
bonds within the team. I think that these bonds are what caused people to stay at Table 22, even
though it was not a great place to work. Amongst the employees, there was a culture of play
which Boleman and Deal (2021) note creates bonds and releases tensions. Even though play
primairily took place outside of work, this aspect certainly made people feel close and motivated
the team. We also all bonded over the annoyances that we faced at work because of the
management, so I guess one could say that the management became a symbol in its own right.
Lastly, our head chef, Chef Mary, was well loved and became a hero of ours. She was kind,
patient, skilled, and fun and we all would have done anything for her.

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

As mentioned above, I think there was a lack of unifying symbols at Table 22. My
recommendation would be for there to be more purposeful symbols that help create a desired
culture. Things like ceremonies and celebrations would be a great way to do this. Something as
simple as celebrating people’s birthdays or providing food for employees after a long shift would
be extremely helpful for the culture. Giving the staff something to look forward to would go a
long way.

Boleman and Deal (2021) mention that the values that count are the ones that an organization
actually lives out. As a restaurant, they want to represent the value of hospitality and family and
their mission is to provide great service to everyone. Acting out those values to its employees
through providing meals to them and cultivating a warm environment would be a great starting
point. Overall, I think that Table 22 needs to create more positive symbols for people bond over
versus employees bonding over symbols that have a negative connotation.

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

In this situation, I think that just being aware of the importance of symbols, traditions, and
clebrations would have been very helpful. Additionally, I think a major problem was that the
emoloyees had a good culture on their own, but that culture was not supported by management.
The culture the management created was often at odds with the culture and bond that the
employees had. Knowing what I know now about culture and symbols, I would have perhaps
tried to use a symbol to unite both the management team and the rest of the staff. However, I was
not in a position of power in this job, so I am not sure what could have done to influence this
situation besides talk with my coworkers about changing the culture. Lastly, I would have

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encouraged play more because I think that was a strength of Table 22. If the “play” would have
come from the top down, I think there would have been a huge shift in the environment there.

Reference
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Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass