OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Political Frame Worksheet

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

2) The situation that I have proposed was and issue with a current employee at my place of
employment of Linton Dentistry. This practive has been in business for 38 years. This
employee has worked for the company for 25 years and as had hard time with
compliance, change, teamwork and doesn’t have realistic goals for the office as a whole.
I am the office manager and have been there for 5 years and have worked in the dental
field for 13 years, this is my first manager position. I have a hard time managing this
employee to lack of compliance and constant push back.

3) Describe how the politics of the organization influenced the situation.

Due to the type of practice it is and the type of patients seen, it has made the the staff
conform to interacting with each other in certain ways and with the patient’s in a certain
way. These ways include, the processes of how things are done in the office and also how
we simply speak to each other and to the patients. This means that everything is done
with intent and done with out a lot of flexibility. There is little room for mistake and/or
they are not accepted. This creates issues for team members who feel that they are doing
things to best of their abilities and the co-worker in question states they are not.

This co-worker has used her 20 years at the practice to make herself almost invaluable to
the doctors. She knows how to interact with patients and knows each patient in a
personal way, which establishes trust with the patients. This leverage, brings her power
and influence because of the relationships she has fostered over the years. It makes it
harder to be able to get the doctors to see how she is using this influence to foster poor
working relationships with the rest of the staff.

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

I would suggest using organizational politics for an alternature course of action in this
case by pointing out and bringing attention to how the co-worker is manipulationg her
power and influence. Power and influence are a good thing if they benefit the company
but if it’s bringing down moral and support then things need to change. I would also like
to further understand the agend of the co-worker and why she feels that her points should
be heard and implemented but that others should not be. I could take the time to
understand all aspects of the issues brought forth so as to pick the best courses of action
to benefit the whole team and not just this one person.

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 I also feel it important to ensure that everyone in the office is heard and that they feel that
they can come forth with their ideas and suggestions. Not just this one person. When
people all feel heard then tension goes down, but it also opens the door for negotiation
and deeper understanding.

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

Politics is a tough subject in general to speak about, even with it just being in an
office/business setting. I would really like to take that stigma away and open the team up
to discussions about what is proper politics in the office and what is not acceptable.
Making the decisions a group effort verse from one person or from higher up. I would
also attempt to try to find some mutual higher ground with this co-worker so that we
could try to work through some of the issues that have arose.

Another thing I would like to improve on is the overall values and morals that are set
forth by the office and ensuring that the employees emulate that, especially this co-
worker. This would give everyone a safer space to be able to feel they could talk about
belong to a special office. We could also try to focus on things like embracing a better
culture among the staff. I feel like this would bring attention to the issue with the co-
worker and get other staff to accept it less and make illeciate some form of change or
improvement from her.