OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the four ethical communities
2. Apply the ethical communities 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.

The situation at hand stems from a immense concrete shortage in Arizona that for months
in early 2022 prevented CPL from shotcreting pools, which is a critical step of forming
the pools. Months without concrete created a 300+ project backlog of pools waiting on
concrete; when this was resolved, the surge of jobs being pushed to the hardscape phase
of the project overwhelmed the in-house labor division. With the steep increase for
hardscape labor, effective communication has been lost between field staff, in house labor
office staff, and their relationship with general construction scheduling. This lack of
communication and poor dynamic directly affects the customer as there is incorrect or
very little communications between these three internal groups. Now, the CPL customer
experience is suffering.

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

At the beginning of my time here at California Pools and Landscape, what was so
attractive was how committed to ethics they were not just to customers, but to their
employees. At this point, CPL has forgotten that soul is a critical component of
organizations (Bolman 2017); thats how it was before we lost it. In the midst of
experiencing the concrete shortage, we experienced a merge with a larger company. This
is what I believe affected how we are dealing with the repercussions of the concrete
shortage. Now its about numbers, and anything that slightly impacts those is cut off.

This organization's foundation was built upon solid values and family like culture. People
like the company because they feel supported, hence the family oriented culture.
However, it seems like the merge has disconnected upper management and its people and
made the lower level employees, in this situation the in house labor schedulers, not
supported. They have been forced to deal with a very intense surge of work due to the

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 concrete shortage which has pushed hundreds of jobs to the hardscape phase of
construction. Upper management originally understood the soul had a place in the
business, and they would consult and support with the bottom line. Now, they operate
very cut throat and have forgotten what attracted so many people to begin with. Turnover
has increased because of this and the communication breakdown is not being solved by
addressing the people involved but just be senior managers not committing to
understanding the problem and finding what areas they can support or adjust current
processes by working closely with those who do the work.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.

The ethical community of family is what held together this organization so tightly for so
long. People stayed working here for a long time and people were attracted to work here
because of its family focused and human resource emphasized organizational values.
Being caring and compassionate is what California Pools and Landscape has lost through
these changes and hardships and using this ethical community would assist in restoring
morality within upper management.

Focusing in this community can increase can really help to unite and build relationships
throughout the organization. The broken communication is something I truly believe can
be remedied or completely cured by prioritizing restoring the family culture. I know first
hand that the in house schedulers do not feel supported by upper management, and they
have not been given the opportunity to speak on their side and neither have general
construction schedulers. They do not know what eachother do and consistently point
fingers. People do their best work when they feel cared for by leadership, and I think that
they people at CPL no longer feel that, and instead they walk on eggshells. This ethical
gap in leadership needs to be closed and can substantially help this situation.

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

I think that most if this is out of my hands. Upper management has became outrageously
controlling yet secretive, so nobody really knows the changes that are happening until it
affects them. My role in this is not as a senior manager which is who ultimately controls
this situation.

While I may not be able to directly control this outcome, there may be things I could have
done to help facilitate the positive relationships and good culture. I always look to
recognize people and communicate clearly and kindly with everyone, which I wish I
could change in upper management but I think my efforts make a difference. I also have
ample personal relationships with both gen. construction scheduling and in house
construction scheduling so I think I could have bridged the gap better. Helping them

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realize we are all on the same team and we all just want to feel supported may have
gotten us close to that family culture feel that we all loved CPL for in the beginning.

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 Reference
Bolman, L.G., & Deal, T.E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.