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 that I have chosen for this case study will be one that I have experienced in my
own store during the time at Starbucks in Colorado.Our store was capable of training Assistant
Store Managers, so they eventually can become a manager at their own store. There was an ASM
at our store a few months ago, and she was all trained within three months, and went on to have
her own store. As time went on, our store manager decided that it was time for her to do her own
family thing, which meant that she would have to move to another town, and no longer be our
manager. At this time, our store needed another manager to fill the role, as our current manager
was leaving. As I mentioned before, the ASM we trained at our store had left, but ended up
coming back and taking the spot for our current store manager. This was all a win win, because
we loved to have the trained ASM back!
As things started to progress with this new transition, not everything was smooth. I
started to hear some things that I didn't think would arise, but it's something that was noticeable.
At this point, our new manager started to lose sight of work quite quickly, and for sure not in the
right path of success for the store overall. This relationship that was started to form between a
worker and the new manager needed to be addressed quickly, considering many members of the
team came to me about this concern. This concern was starting to affect not only me, but the
entire team, and the team operation in the store. I decided that out of respect and care for my
team, I needed to address this issue in private, in order to change some things going forward, and
in the hope to stop this issue from affecting the store, and the team. I went ahead and addressed
this with the new manager, and laid out the fact that something needs to change. This issue
would be solved either by transferring to neighboring stores, or simply end things completely.
The manager was very understanding in the wrong doing, and addressed what was all going on,
so things were all clear, with a great amount of apologies in the process. After a couple days, I
received a call from the District manager, and was asked about the conversation a couple days
prior, and was told that this was all going to be handled, and no concerns should be left on me.
This was a sense of relief considering I was just a barista at the end of the day, who cared so
much about the team. The district manager proceeded to transfer the manager, in order to gain
control of the team, and the damage that had been done already. The transfer helped our store,
and the help was all taken care of.

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

Organizations are combinations of individuals and different groups of people, which have
different perspectives in the world (Bolman, 2021).From my belief, I think that the world has the
natural differences which come to be limited when it comes to the different choices.In life, there
are good and bad things, and there comes times where the politics seems to be very negative in
so many ways. There will be so many different rumors and talks between people, it is just the
matter of how everything gets interpreted, but it's all about being able to put judgements aside,
and really see what is happening in the world. All events and circumstances all happen for a
reason, so we are able to learn from those mistakes.

For the situation that I have chosen, the issue all arises from hierarchical management. Even
though the entire situation has to do with the choices that are made by the manager, and the
wrongdoing, it does not mean that it is just the behavioral things. There are still factors of
politics that have an effect on the situation. When it comes to the resource supply, there is a spot
where the support does not exist, because the resources are not fully available, so then it makes it
hard for the team to make those goals, and that is something that is not considered at all. The
decision making when it comes to the pressure of politics is something that is hard when it
comes to working at Starbucks and that is something that is not in the forefront focus, and
conflict can arise with different outcomes that may have a negative outlook when it comes to
politics.

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

When it comes to decision making, the most important individuals are the team members. Team
members are very crucial individuals, and if they are not taken care of, then the function will not
happen, and unexpected outcomes will arise. When it comes to dealing with different obstacles,
such as mental health, this is something that Starbucks has put a great effort into making sure
their workers have the ability to utilize the tools at their disposal. This is done by the usage of
headspace apps, and the therapy appointments online. These are the tools that are available, so
the team members are capable of working on the stress and mental situations outside, and inside
of work.

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

Given the information that I have about the political frame, I believe there is nothing that
I was going to be able to do in this situation. Everyone is capable of making their

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decisions, and putting their effort and opinions. In this case, I did everything that I could
in this situation to better the store, and that is the best that I could do. I do think that
Starbucks managers could get better training in interpersonal skills, when it comes to
managing , but other than that I think this is all great stuff in terms of decision making in
my case.

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 Reference or References
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and

leadership (7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass