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.

I am a student intern for the Human Resources department at ABC Enterprise Partners,

which funds ABC University. I was brought on board to create an employee handbook for

the organization. With the guidance of my business unit leader and support from my

department, I proposed a policy in the final draft of my employee handbook that addresses

alternative days to work remotely, compact work schedules, and different lunch periods

based on the department's needs. The legal team, human resources, and executive suite have

all had various opinions and everyone’s perspectives are not in alignment. The CEO vaguely

mentioned an upcoming change for our hybrid work model during a small social event. Not

many people throughout the organization, let alone the leadership team, are aware of the

situation and there is no general consensus on feelings towards it. On September 6, the

change was announced company-wide and will be implemented in October despite the lack

of consensus

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

Politics of this organization have greatly affected the situation at hand. For a policy to be put

in place in the organization, the policy proposal must come from the C-suite executive in the

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 department responsible for the policy. It is then reviewed by the General Counsel, who will

then propose it to the CEO and all of his direct reports, which are all C-Suites and Vice

Presidents of subsidiaries. Organizations typically give select individuals or groups more

access than others in the decision-making process (Bolman and Deal, 2021). In this case, the

Chief People Officer (C-Suite of HR) and the VP of General Counsel had the most input in

the decision-making process. Both of them have opposing views to this situation. The VP of

General Counsel told me that this decision-making process is not a democracy, and she

advised me to remove the policy from the handbook draft and not revisit it. The CPO, who is

my business unit leader, informed me to keep it in the employee handbook and that HR has

more influence on these decisions than other departments.

At the same time that I was initially proposing the idea of a flexible work agreement policy,

the president of ABC University asked our organization to make this change. The president of

ABC University wants half of all teams in ABC Enterprise Partners to work in the office every

day of the workweek. The CEO of ABC Enterprises reports directly to the CEO of ABC

Enterprise Partners. Although it seemed like the Human Resources department had the most

influence and impact, the decision to roll out this policy was due to the president of ABC

University’s requests. No discussions or room for criticism were considered.

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

I would use organizational politics to better position myself against the opposition of

other departments by presenting my information differently. Keeping in mind the

authority and the influence that people have within the organization, I did not have the

ability to make my word alone impactful to the General Counsel. My status as an

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 undergraduate student, my position title of “intern”, and my age did not leverage me

effectively in delivering organizational-changing proposals to an organization that is

older than me. Becoming aware of my disadvantages and my lack of proximity to the

decision-making process can help me create an alternative course of action.

I would have still created the policy and proposal but would have the CPO present this

information during a one-on-one meeting with the General Counsel. If possible, I would

have asked the CPO to not mention that I had any part in creating the policy proposal and

that this was created either by her or senior leaders within the human resources

department. Closing the proximity to decision-making and choosing someone who has

more influence within the coalition to present ideas may mitigate conflict.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned

about this frame.

After learning about the political frame, I would have formally waited to make the

announcement of policy implementation after the president of ABC University requested

it. It could have been drafted, but due to the influence that people outside the organization

have on the situation, reframing may have been a better course of action. When the policy

was announced to all managers and supervisors, many people had questions and

objections. Manager workload will increase as they are now tasked with delegating which

team members will be on-site, which team members are essential to be in the office on

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 certain days, keeping track of every person within their team’s schedules, and defining

what teams are if it is department-wide.

In order to increase buy-in from people leaders, a change I would make is to create a

shared vision for all of the people on the executive leadership team, who look over them.

The political assumption that coalition members have significantly different opinions,

values, views, and motivations foretold the conflict of lack of cohesiveness (Deal and

Boleman, 2021). A shared vision that executive leadership is able to collaborate with one

another and better sell this vision to their teams, who will then delegate it to their

subordinates.

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 References

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