OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Political Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the political frame
2. Apply the political 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.

The situation I have used was a big project in our organization that was taken on with
limited direction and insight from leadership on how it should be managed and led. At the
time, I was the Operations Manager and had limited responsibility besides overseeing the
one Scheduling Coordinator in my department. Even though I didn’t oversee other
departments, I did constantly keep track of the projects that were going on within each
department to see how they fit with the bigger picture and processes we currently had.
For this project, we were not only moving from one version of our current system to
another, but were also cleaning up multiple aspects of the system that were old or
outdated. This project was initially started by our Director of Recruitment because the
new system would have a functionality that allowed for applicant tracking whereas our
current system didn’t have this in place. This was a situation from the start because one
of our c-suite leaders who had initialized the start of this project for him, did not properly
review what was needed in order to successfully implement and go live in the new
system. Because of the lack of oversight and initial planning, the project was originally
spearheaded by only our Director of Recruitment and it wasn’t until later that I was
brought into the project. Because of this there were initial pieces to the project that were
overlooked such as how it would integrate with our current scheduling system in place,
how it would pull the information over from our accounting system, and how it would
work with our payroll system, all of which we had already developed processes. This was
an issue because it caused a great deal of distrust amongst team members that were not
aware of what this system would do to their working processes and because they were not
part of initial trainings and demos on how this system would improve our current way or
working. Additionally, because of this lack of oversight there were multiple risks that
were later identified and caused the project to push back on our go live date.

1
 2) Describe how the politics of the organization influenced the situation.

I felt that politics of the organization influenced the situation through the agenda setting
that was done by our COO in our organization. Our COO was brought on about six
months prior to this project and I felt that his biggest political agenda was to get a project
on the books to show how he was moving the needle forward within our organization and
showing what he could do. Because of his agenda and lack of oversight of what our
system currently was doing versus what this new implementation would mean, I felt that
it influenced who he put on the project and who he didn’t include. Because of this, it took
me realizing that he had moved forward with the project to see that it was a bigger project
than he or others thought.

As stated in our reading, “the agenda must convey direction while addressing the
concerns of major stakeholders” (Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E., 202, p. 215). While our
COO did address the concerns and helped to show other leadership such as our President
and CEO what the new system would be able to bring, I felt that he provided this as a top
level review rather than initiating those at the bottom level of the organization to see the
system and ask necessary questions prior to the roll out. This caused distrust amongst
many team members who were not aware a new system was being developed and even
more distrust when they learned what was going to be needed from them in order to make
the changes happen.

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

I would have used organizational politics to get input and buy in from those in each
department in our organization rather than just the leadership. Our project was similar to
that described in chapter ten this week. Our leadership “overlooked the risks in proposing
change that someone else was expected to carry out” (Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E., 202,
p. 234). With this oversight from our COO, it caused turmoil in various departments and
something I worked to try to manage and help alleviate. This is what I felt I would do
differently. Because we knew we had a system that needed to be updated and have added
features included to better our front office team members, I would have had anyone that
may have been involved in the project in the initial demos and other planning meetings to
allow them to voice their concerns and questions for the changes that were to be rolled
out.

I would have also liked to have been able to network and build coalitions better. I have a
great report with each department in our organization, however our Director of
Recruitment who was the lead on this project does not. Had I known about this project
moving forward, I would have been able to help get buy in from the departments and also
showcase what the system would be able to do. I feel like this would have had those in

2
 the departments that were going to need to test and verify information more intuned with
what was needed and would have allowed for a seamless go live into the new system
rather than the delays that were caused.

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

Given what I know about the political frame, I think I would have used my influence with
the different departments to help make sure that this project was a success. While this
project did end up going live, it was after many delays and many late evenings for
departments that had to verify and test their applications in the system to ensure that their
were still working and no data loss had happened. I would have also used his influence to
make better use of the partnerships we had in place with our outside vendors. Because
our Director of Recruitment was only working with one outside vendor rather than the
others we had available, I felt that this too cause issues and delays.

Utimately what I think I would have done would have been to nominate myself as the
project manager rather than allowing our Director to spearhead the entire project. I think
that by doing this, he would only have had say in what was going to affect his department
rather than other departments, and I would have also had the ability to adjust aspects of
the project to better suit other front end and back end departments. I think influence was a
big part of the political frame in my situation. Those who had the influence did not know
what to do with it and those such as myself with limited political influence were not
aware up front of the project or the bigger picture.

3
 Reference

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