Module 4: Political Frame

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

From Module 1, the scenario that I decided to use for my personal case study was at a

previous place of employment at a hardware store in California. This hardware store was very

much a local mom and pop style of hardware store that had its fair share of problems. Most of

these problems stemmed from complacent owners and an unwillingness to try new things to

propel the business towards success and to increase revenues. As is common in small businesses,

I wore a variety of hats as the saying goes and performed a wide variety of roles within the

organization. I was a sales associate, cashier, key holder, and window screen repairman all in a

day.

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

Within the small hardware store, politics were often pretty straightforward and simple. There

were the two groups, us employees and the two store owners. Each group had their own

objectives and their own purpose for being there and these objectives and purpose were often at

odds with each other. Our textbook states that “Managers often fail to get things done because

they rely too much on reason and too little on relationships.” (Bolman and Deal, 2017). This was

very applicable to the situation at the hardware store because neither I nor my coworkers had a

good relationship with the store owners and this lack of a relationship had a negative effect on

our motivation and attitudes when present at work or asked to do something. On the other side of

the equation, the store owners seemed to not be interested in building these relationships with us

as we were simply there to do our jobs.

 I find that its often easier and more pleasant to interact with people after you’ve built a

positive and beneficial relationship with them. They’ll be more likely to help you and go out on a

limb for you for the sake of that positive relationship. This would have been the case in my

workplace had the store owners made an effort to create these positive relationships with us

employees rather than showing up, telling us what to do, and going home for the day with little

to know transparency or inside information into their thinking or planning process when it came

to business decisions. This would have helped me, as well as the other employees, fell less

complacent with our work and be more willing to do more than the bare minimum requirements.

3. Recommend how you would use organizational politics for an alternative course of

action regarding your case.

Had I been in charge of the hardware store, the first step I’d take is to make an effort to learn

more about my employees on a personal level and begin to build a relationship with them that we

would both benefit from. Us employees formed an unofficial alliance because we had the same

feeling and thoughts regarding the store managers and the situation overall. However, this didn’t

do us much good as all the power in the organization was centered at the top with the store

owners. While I understand that the store owners needing to have the majority share of the power

within the organization, sharing some of that power with us employees would have been a

beneficial way for them to improve relations with us without sacrificing a major portion of

control to us or losing any of the organization.

During my time at the hardware store, the store owner’s power came from the source of

position power rather than power sources such as personal power or alliances and networks. Our

textbook defines position power as “Positions confer certain levels of legitimate authority.”
(Bolman and Deal, 2017). For example, your boss has power because he’s in the position of

being your boss rather than obtaining this power through personal power or something similar.

Ideally, rather than being sourced solely through position power, I believe the store owners’

power should be sourced from personal power as well. More specifically, ‘reciprocation’ and

‘liking’ to balance things out and to create better relationships with us employees. These two

concepts go hand in hand in that if people like you, they’re more willing to help you with what

you need and as you help them, they reciprocate those favors back to you in the future. Matching

these with positional power, rather than positional power alone, would make for a well-balanced

political atmosphere within the organization.

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

about this frame.

Knowing what I know now, there are a few things that I would do differently. Firstly, simply

being aware of the politics that exist within an organization would aid me in identifying and

utilizing the different sources of power and building effective relationships with my coworkers

and the store’s owners. Realizing the pitfalls of using a purely position power approach to

leadership that was being utilized by the store’s owners in that when it comes to politics within

an organization, authority is not the only source of fuel that keeps things functioning properly

and flowing as planned. For optimal results and optimal political relationships, the store owners

should have mixed in reciprocation to build relationships with us as we exchange favors.

Bringing this to the attention of my coworkers would be the ideal way to begin to implement this

political system within our organization.

 As I’ve stated in the previous frame submission for this case study, gathering the support of

your coworkers and teammates around you is vital to the success of any new idea or change you

attempt to implement. For the political frame this is no different and the very concept of politics

within an organization requires you to gain support from your coworkers through whatever

method works best for you. A few ways I would have attempted to accomplish this would have

been by forming alliances because as our textbook states, “Friends and allies make things a lot

easier.” (Bolman and Deal, 2017). As I’m sure many politicians would agree with this statement,

it rings true across a variety of situations and organizations.

References

Bolman, L. G., and T. E. Deal. Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice,

and Leadership. Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2017.