OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:

1. Describe the structural frame

2. Apply the structural 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 organization I chose was a fitness studio I was an instructor at. I also acted as
an advisor the manager as she was new to her role and lacked any significant leadership
or management experience. The situation was when we decided to recruit talent in an ef-
fort to expand and open another studio.

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

The structure of the organization most closely aligns with a simple structure as it as “co-
ordination is accomplished primarily through direct supervision and oversight” (Bolman & Deal,
2021). Since the studio is a locally owned and operated business, they do not outsource any of
their operational tasks. All of their payroll, profit and loss statements, strategic decision making,
business analysis and day to day operations are completed in house by the manager and owner.
However, the owner has taken a backseat and relies solely on the manager to execute all of these
tasks.

Bolman & Deal comment that a flaw with simple structures is that one or two people
have total decision making control of the organization and can essentially do what they want
with unchecked power. In the case of the studio, opening another location was not a financially
sound decision as the current studio wan’t profitable and was already struggling to have enough
consistent instructors to keep a full schedule. Instead of looking at the facts or even consulting
with those who were employed for the studio, she decided to move forward with opening another
location and filling it with inexperienced instructors and staff members.

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3) Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action regard-
ing your case.

If it was up to me, I would have approached it with a more holistic point of view
and created a review board in order to analyze all the data and then make decisions based
on facts. The manager of the studio is the one who does all the tasks in addition to teach-
ing which leaves for a skewed perspective. Her focus is not on making sound carefully
crafted decisions, it’s more or less reactive decisions as her time isn’t spent analyzing and
planning strategically. In addition, I would likely invest the money in a manager or opera-
tor who has prior knowledge of running a studio and potentially a non bias third party to
review the business plans and make recommendations.

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

Simple structures are fine for what they are- in smaller companies and organiza-
tions it makes sense to keep all the decision making in house and to have your eye on all
facets of the business at all times. However, this approach can leave you only seeing
things from the frame of your four walls and not thinking outside the box enough or be-
ing honest enough about the state of things. By spending so much time close to the day to
day you lose sight of the bigger picture

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 Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership
(7th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.