OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Political Frame Worksheet-Fashion

on First Student Organization

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

The situation I chose to analyze is my experience starting a student organization here at

Arizona State University on the downtown campus. My second major is Fashion and our
program moved downtown a couple years ago. This transition has caused some feelings
of isolation and a lack of community. A fellow student, Shelby, and I decided to start a
general fashion club to create a space where fashion students can come together, gain
new experiences, make professional connections, and learn more about the industry. I
have an internal role in the organization as I am one of the co-founders and officers for
the club. However, my situations were prior to the club being approved so I’m not
exactly sure how my role would specify there. I was part of a very small group of
individuals that worked to start a fashion club here at ASU. I am an officer, and co-
founder for the club and worked closely with our other officer and advisors.

Describe how the politics of the organization influenced the situation.

I do feel that this portion of the assignment is going to be tricky based on the situation I
chose to analyze. My situation was getting the organization running, therefor we didn’t
have a clear structure, there are no employees since it’s a club at ASU, and we also didn’t
have certain politics. However, I will do my best to paint the picture with relevant
information for this assignment.

At this point and time, the potential organization consisted of four people, my
friend/fellow fashion student Shelby, our advisor Dennita (head of the fashion program at
ASU), and Remington (her associate, also works for the ASU fashion program), and
myself (a fashion student). Our roles are officers and advisors. As officers we approached
the advisors about the potential club and then determined if it was a good idea and if they
were interested in supporting us as advisors. We didn’t experience much interpersonal
conflict outwardly, when we were on zoom or in person we communicated well, and
everyone shared their opinions/feelings. But over email things were more complicated as
far as getting timely responses. At this time ASU had just acquired FIDM, and Dennita
and Remington became very busy with that. Their ability to communicate and make time
for meetings dwindled. I think Shelby and I began to take some of this personally and we

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 felt undervalued. The entire time we felt very separate from Dennita and Remington, I
think due to us being students and them being staff, the age gap, and the existing
relationships we had (Shelby and I were friends prior, and Dennita and Remington were
close prior as well). Again, this is a unique situation that doesn’t involve a work setting
but hopefully this sums up the environment.

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

In this situation I feel organization politics did play a role. An alternative course of action
I may use would be setting a better foundation, having check ins to see where everyone is
at, and create strong organizational values that we all share and affirm. We all had a goal,
start the club at ASU and then have meetings and events. We all wanted to build
community at ASU downtown and within the fashion program, these were shared. But
since we had a gap between the officers and advisors as far as personal connections,
feeling nervous to speak our mind to our ‘superiors’, and the lack of communication as
time went on, we started to get into a rut. Shelby and I often felt we couldn’t go to
Dennita and Remington with problems or questions since we knew they were busy with
actual work, and since they were staff members. There was a divide, which makes sense,
but at the same time this isn’t a situation where they were our teacher or boss, so I think
the divide we subconsciously created was unnecessary.

Organizational politics did exist here, even though it isn’t a traditional work setting. I
think our main problem was failing to recognize and acknowledge them outwardly.
Instead, we felt certain ways but never voiced them, so how could we expect anyone to
change? I now know that office politics are like conflict, in a sense that they aren’t
inherently bad. According to the Harvard Business Review, “Remember that doing
politics on your own terms, with a clear-eyed view of how to be effective without selling
your soul or sacrificing your values, will not only benefit you but so too those colleagues
and stakeholders who are counting on you to do the best job you can. All of us play some
form of politics and getting better at the version that we want to play is critical to our
career success and our personal wellbeing. Because it really is true — if you don’t do
politics, politics will do you.” (Postma, 2021). This article explored how ignoring politics
isn’t a good thing, instead we must acknowledge them, understand them, and know how
they can benefit/harm us.

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

I don’t think any of us were really in the wrong here. I can’t fault Dennita and Remington
for having actual work to do, and I can’t fault Shelby and I for struggling with a process
we had never done before. However, I do think we needed a lot of help with

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 understanding there were politics here and they did impact us. Even something like an
age gap can make you feel inferior and like your voice isn’t important. It can also make
you feel less important compared to their actual paid work they need to complete. If we
had communicated more from the beginning, we could have established expectations, felt
valued, and had a very different experience.

If I were to do this over again, I would have an open conversation about everyone’s
expectations for each other. I would start by asking some other club officers what their
relationship is like with their advisor, how much communication occurs, how reliant they
are on them, and how the initial startup process was. I would then meet with Shelby so
we could create a clear vision and our expectations for a potential advisor. Then I would
meet with multiple staff members to see if they had interest and time to support us. Next,
I would make sure that as we started the process, we were all aware of what is required
from ASU and also the level of involvement we are all looking for. Finally, I would send
out a schedule/list of action items, so we all knew what needed to happen and when.

At the time, I didn’t have this newfound knowledge on organizational politics or how
they play a role in success/communication. Now, I can understand that the head-in-the-
sand approach wasn’t helping us.

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 Reference or References

Postma, N. (2021, October 11). You can’t sit out office politics. Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2021/07/you-cant-sit-out-office-politics