OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and the 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) Name and describe your organization.

After reviewing the guidelines, I am choosing to keep the name of the organization confidential.
The organization I will be referencing is a multinational service and consumer company
providing goods to customers across the globe. The organization’s hierarchy follows the
traditional corporate model with a top-down leadership design. Like most organizations, there
are multiple internal departments segmented according to specific areas of focus. For a high-
level overview, I will highlight two main divisions of work within the organization: operational
roles and support roles. Operational roles are considered front line, customer facing production
roles. This includes the leadership positions that support production roles from manager, multi-
unit managers, directors, and vice-presidents. Support roles are behind the scenes roles intended
to support the operational roles. These include things such as human resources, finance, and an
operational excellence team, among many others.

2) Describe your role in the organization (it can be an internal or external role).

I had many separate roles within my 22-year tenure at the organization, but they all were
within the operational side of the business. My final role at the organization was as a
portfolio leader responsible for up to 600 employees, managing operations at 50+ locations,
and leading a team of 50+ store managers toward the organization’s goals. The work of this
position required effectively communicating with the managers and employees around
organizational changes and directives, while focusing on the customer experience and hourly
employee experience. Prior to my departure, I performed this role in three major markets
across the country for a total of 9 years in position.

3) Describe the situation, including information you think the will help the reader
understand the most important elements of the situation. (This will require
selectivity: part of the art of case writing is separating the essential facts from the
mass of information that might be included).

1
The situation I am focusing on is the one that led me to leave the organization after over
20 years as a loyal and dedicated employee. One of the most essential facts leading up to
the situation was multiple leadership changes in a short amount of time, having 4
different leaders in 8 months. Another major factor was the organization changing their
communication methods and relying on mass communication rather than allowing direct
leadership to tailor and personalize information to their individual markets. This led to
disengagement by multiple leaders with similar roles to mine, as we were not able to be
proactive in communication or solutions finding for barriers. We had to wait to see what
the organization would share directly with our teams and attempt to react successfully.
While these internal communication and leadership changes were occurring, external
pressures were at work that were trying to negatively affect the organization’s goals and
reputation. This led to a push for transparency which, unfortunately with local leadership,
resulted in weaponizing feedback. With all these factors in play, I became disengaged
and had to do some soul searching. I believe if I had a stable leader through these issues, I
would have been able to remain engaged and see it through. Without that in place
however, I could no longer see myself as the right person to lead teams to a future that I
no longer believed in.