OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Political Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the human resource frame
2. Apply the human resource 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 arose was between my boss/owner of the medical practice and myself, the
medical receptionist. During the morning meeting on Halloween day, he let us know that we
could text our families and let them know that we would be out two hours earlier than our
scheduled time. When that time came around, with the last patient not showing up, I enforced
his own policy on patient lateness in regards to canceling and rescheduling their
appointments. When I did this, he responded that we needed the patients due to poor
retention statistics for the clinic, and that since I did not have children of my own to celebrate
Halloween with, it wasn't important for me to get out at the time he had promised. After
being left to close on my own while the provider still got out on time, I brought up the issue
the next day with him directly and stated how I felt singled out even though I told him I had
plans with my child family members to take them trick or treating, in which he still
responded that since I didn't have children of my own, I wouldn't understand.

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

Given the small size of our organization, power is simply in the hands of our owner. Given
there are no other assistant or associate managers in the office. While me and my other
coworkers are formed in a coalition, we in the end, have to abide by the rules and regulations put
in forth from my boss. If there was someone else that could report to if we didn't feel
comfortable sharing it with our direct boss in fear of retaliation, I believe that our team would be
better apt at discussing issues that arise and creating a game plan thereafter. As we all get along
extremely well, hardly ever is there any social conflict that arises, the only conflict that has
brought to surface is minute performance details that our boss says publicly to all at our morning
and afternoon meetings. We discussed the issue at hand as a group and address the person who
caused it together--which I believe is why we don't feel comfortable to share things with this
boss.

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 While there is no explicit power or responsibility granted by tenure, we do have a coworker
who has been with the company and said boss for 18 years. While we stay within our coalition as
employees too said boss, sometimes we disband on issues dependent on what we think this
tenured employee might respond. While she doesn't have any explicit power, favoritism is
showed towards her and whatever she may report, so in sense she does have more power than the
rest of us, and can report discussions to him as she so pleases.

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

Within my situation, it's difficult to specifically say that anything else could be done given how
my boss reacted when I brought up the unfairness at hand. Given that we are such a small
organization, and don't have an overseeing management company or any sort of human
resources, addressing this issue would truly come down to trying and getting my coalition of
coworkers in addition to this favorited employee to agree with me and addressed the issue with
my boss. As stated within our textbook “Differences in scarce resources make power a key
resource. Power in organizations is basically the capacity to make things happen and affect
outcomes” (Deal and Bolman, 2021). While we are scarce in numbers, banding together is
essentially the power that we need. Given the lack of additional reporting structure, using the
slight bit of favoritism to that a vested employee, may be the only power that I have in that
situation.

Additionally, I believe that I should have brought the issue to light within our meeting the next
morning. Given as though this boss likes to bring up any issues directed at any employees as a
whole to the team during our two meetings of the day, I believe that this would have been a fair
issue to bring up. Furthermore, I think that if I had presented this issue to the group as a whole,
we'd we more comfortable in discussing it and addressing why it was unfair.

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

Given what I have learned about this frame, I believe that I should have used more of the social
aspects of organizational politics to my advantage. Given that our team is relatively in agreeance
that we all feel we have no power in making decisions or responding, our power lies within the
numbers against our boss. Using this somewhat form of social unrest, I believe I could have
skewed this situation more so in my favour. Now knowing about coalitions, I think our power
lies within numbers, when other issues that are similar arise that are pinpointed against one
member, we feel more comfortable going against said boss when we all are in agreeance during
our meetings. The power of my boss to enforce this lied in the fact that it was a private
discussion with no outside import, if political pressure was applied to the situation and the issue
was brought up as a team, I believe that this would have put pressure for my boss to do the right
thing and at least apologize for the issue itself. As stated by Bolman and Deal, “If political

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pressures on goals are visible in the private sector, they are blatant in the public arena”
(2021).Using this unification, we are able to address issues as a more collective whole, rather
than it being one against the boss.

With Halloween coming up this year, I'm curious as to if this issue will arise again, and I will be
better apt to walking through this process.

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