OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA- Structural Frame Worksheet

1. Restatement of situation

The situation that I will be discussing in this personal case analysis stems from
my move from San Francisco to Los Angeles. In SF I worked as a supervisor at a high
functioning, standard following Starbucks, but my new store in LA was anything but
that. This case study will dive into my troubles with transitioning to a different culture
and trying to make overall improvements on day-to-day operations.

2. How organizational structure influenced the situation

The structure of this store is similar to the structure that takes place at every
Starbucks; store manager at the top, leading down into branches of supervisors which
then lead to the baristas. Unfortunately at my store (and many other stores) there is a
fork in the chain that symbolizes the am staff and the pm staff. The am staff has
concerns for the pm staff, and the pm staff feels the same way about the am staff, but the
problem is that there is no open communication between these two groups. When I
would come in for my closing shift the store would be a mess, nothing would be
restocked or prepped, and no cleaning tasks would be done at all; this is what I was
trying to change, and why the situation went down to begin with.

I am a very vocal person, and have little problem with telling someone that they
are slacking, especially when it comes to work. When I would come in for my shift, I
would tell the morning supervisor that I was upset with her handoff and share with her
all the things she should do differently. That sounds rude, I promise I was kind and
supportive the first couple of times I told her, but after telling her the same things
multiple times, my tone was not nearly as nice. Due to my tendency to speak my mind,
our manager actually started scheduling us apart as an attempt to calm tensions, but in
reality it made the situation so much worse.

3. Structure for alternative course of action

Honestly, the established structure is a good approach, but it needs to be fine

tuned to allow for more open channels of communication, which I believe would have
rectified the situation quickly and smoothly. The second that these disagreements were
discovered to genuinely be affecting the team, a supervisor meeting should have been
scheduled; this is a standard practice in which we could freely discuss our expectations
for each other, and establish a set of ground rules we would strive towards as a team.
Afterwards, as a team, we would need to ensure that these norms were being followed
and if need be, corrective action should be in place.
A key thing I would have liked to see under a different structure involves
scheduling the two conflicting members apart from each other. Doing so slashed the
small communication channel between them, resulting in an even bigger disdain for
each other. In all aspects of life, conflict is inevitable. Whether it stems from
miscommunication or a serious situation, it is essential that it is taken care of for the
overall wellbeing of the members involved, the other members who could be residually
affected as well as the health of the organization.

4. What I would have done differently

If the structure was modeled differently I fully believe the situation would have
been settled much sooner. If I had the chance to vocalize the way I felt I know it would
have relieved the large amount of stress I was carrying from the situation. It got to a
point where I was thinking about it outside of work, and it was something that would
make me dread going into my shift. By removing this trigger so early I would have been
more efficient, dedicated and overall more emotionally stable.
I say all of this from my point of view, but since I didn’t know how she felt about
the situation, she may have felt similarly to me. I can almost bet that there were things I
was asking for that she didn’t believe could be done, but since we never had that open
dialog I wasn’t able to understand her point of view either. If we had that opportunity I
probably wouldn’t have been so angry and we could have possibly obtained a positive
working relationship with each other.