OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Politcal Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the political frame
2. Apply the political frame to your personal case situation

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

This situation involves the following departments of Western Alliance Bank. The Vendor
Management Services team, the Legal Department team, and the HR Recruiting team. I work as
a Vendor Management Analyst on the VMS team, so I had a front row seat this story as it
unfolded.
On Friday October 8th, an email thread was forwarded to the Vendor Management Services
inbox in which a recruiter was inquiring about a Statement of Work (SOW) for a new employee.
This email read as follows:
October 7, 2021 12:03 PM [Kendra Kilber*]:
Hi, I pushed through a new temp hire through background yesterday, Kisha Kilgorey, for
R2839 HR Specialist. Her tentative start date is Monday 10/18 and I have the SOW from
the Agency as well. Can you advise who I should send that to and if there is anything else
I need to do? Thank you, Kendra
Kendra received a response from a Dianna Zeenon*, a Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist,
that reads:
October 8, 2021 8:47 AM [Dianna Zeenon*]:
Kendra, All SOW’s must go through Legal. Send the SOW to:+Amy Landerin +Vendor
Management Services. Once Amy approves the language and format in the SOW, and
after the SOW is executed, the Agency can invoice. The SOW should be in Word format
so that she (Amy) can redline as needed. Vendor Management will direct for signatures
and execution. Hope that helps!
At this point, VMS had received Kendra’s first email in addition to this recent reply from
Dianna. My first step was to confirm with Kendra what recruiting agency had been used. Kendra
confirmed that this employee would be hired through Rodson Hulf*. This was one of my
vendors, so handling this request would be my responsibility. In response to Kendra’s inquiry, I
told her the following:
October 8, 2021 10:47 AM [Audra Scott]:
Hi Kendra, Okay, great. All VMS should need then is a fully executed copy of the SOW
when you receive it. Thank you, Audra Scott

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 With this response, a big mistake had just been made. At this point, all parties receiving the
email thread were Kendra, myself (through the VMS email account), and Amy Landerin* who is
a counsel member with the Legal Department. In the back of my head, I knew it was a part of our
process to have all SOWs sent to Legal@westernalliancebank.com for review before execution,
but I did not explicity state this in my responses to Kendra because I saw Amy, our most
commonly used Legal counsel member on the email thread. So, I left as is and figured she would
review on Legal’s behalf. I strayed from the proper process.
From the beginning, it was technically Kendra’s responsibility to have the SOW reviewed by
Legal, signed by both parties for full execution, and sent back to VMS for entering into the
system. That is how the process goes. I waited about a week for her to get back to me, and I did
finally hear from her on October 14th. She clearly had been working on it as she asked who the
signer on the WAB side should be. I informed Kendra that it would be William Brugs*, the
Senior Vice President of Human Resources. The next day, October 15th, Kendra sent back the
SOW fully executed to the same thread of people: myself and Amy Landerin*. Then, Amy sent
the following which was her first response in the thread thus far:
October 15, 2021 1:09 PM [Amy Landerin*]:
Hi Kendra and VMS – I’m a little confused as to why this SOW was never submitted to
the Legal Department for review prior to execution? Diana’s attached email explains the
process (though a slight tweak is that all contracts need to go to the Legal Department –
legaldepartment@westernalliancebank.com – and not to me directly). As VMS is aware
of the review process, VMS should also have stepped in to ensure that a Word version of
the SOW was provided to Legal. This SOW doesn’t align with the governing agreement
and contains conditions we do not accept as general policy, and adds terms in conflict
with the governing agreement, which, on a related note, isn’t even properly referenced in
this SOW, thereby leaving the parties wondering what exactly the prevailing terms really
are. Please reach out to me at your earliest convenience as I will need to note my file as
to why this departed from the usual Legal review process, thank you.
Both my managers were CC’d on this response as was Kendra’s manager as well as William
Brugs*. Kendra’s manager immediately responded explaining that she is new and that is why the
mistake was made. I knew I had also contributed to this mistake because I did not mention or
check if the SOW had been approved by Legal before it was signed. I did not want to hide
behind the fact that I was new, though, so I arranged a phone call with both of my managers to
explain and own up the situation. Afterwards, my manager sent an email back in the thread that
reads as follows:
October 15, 2021 2:56 PM [Sally Ronald*]:
On chatting with Audra who is the VMS analyst assigned, Kendra was requested to send
this to legal for review and should have only sent it on the Vendor once having received
Legal’s ok to do so or have redlines addressed if noted. The VMS analyst should have
confirmed via email that this was being done and followed the process we have for all
agreement reviews. I apologize that this was not done and the agreement was fully
executed without Legal or VMS review. Kendra, going forward please ensure that any
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 and all agreements are sent directly to vms@westernalliancebank.com and the VMS
analyst assigned will follow the VMS/Legal process (sending them to the legal group
email and not an individual). You will be copied on all communication regarding your
agreement, redlines etc. with Legal. Have a good weekend everyone.
Currently, this SOW presents risk to the bank which is the opposite of what VMS aims to
achieve. An amendment document will need to be drafted to correct this, but nothing can take
away the fact that steps were missed in this process. Sally acknowledged this and made it clear to
everybody exactly which steps were missed so we can keep it from happening again.

*Fake name was used in place of the actual name

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

As far as political assumptions go, these departments within Western Alliance Bank are
all in a bit of a power struggle at the moment for scarce resources. Western Alliance has recently
grown drastically in size which is excellent for business but tough on the people actually doing
the business. Workload doubles as profits double, but the number of people working stays the
same. This has been the case for the last year or so at the bank until many, if not all, departments
and teams reached a breaking point. Several departments confirmed that the rate at which their
small teams were working was not sustainable and that they would break eventually.
Management responded and created a budget for about 100 new positions. In a company of
2,000, though, this really wasn’t much. As a result, resources (resources being the open job
positions) were scarce and it was a power battle to prove why your team needed the help the
most. Like the text says, “Scarce resources and enduring differences put conflict at the center of
day-to-day dynamics and make power the most important asset” (Bolman and Deal, _). Whoever
did receive a position, or better, had that position filled, gained power because it meant their
team may not be as tired and overworked.
In this situation, Vendor Management, Legal, and HR recruiting were all small,
overworked teams. Entry level positions and senior leadership alike were working well over their
forty hour work weeks and tensions were running high. People were forced to work so quickly
that small mistakes, like forgetting to send the contract to Legal for review, were extremely
common. Common or not, though, is no excuse for making a mistake that put the bank at risk,
and it becomes very easy to pointf fingers when it’s somebody else’s team who messed up.
When VMS and HR recruiting slipped up, it was very easy for Amy (from Legal) to attack and
blame us. There was an obligation created in that exact moment that it was all on one person to
follow a process that multiple are usually responsible for, but because everybody was so
overworked, it was hard enough to manage our emails let alone job responsibilities outside of the
normal day to day.

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

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 Something that would have benefitted everybody in this situation would be a little
allocation of scarce resources. As I’ve mentioned previously, bank employees area bit
overworked right now and it causes overflow of certain processes. For example, VMS is
currently tasked with two different, major process that are truly the responsible of Legal and
Accounting. Not many people at the basic employee level have the power to make a change
happen with respect to the processes, so we tough it out until things slow down and get back to
normal. Had there been a recent reallocation of work, though, both VMS, Legal, and HR
recruiting wouldn’t have been working so fast that a step was missed.

Additionally, organizational politics regarding networks and coalitions would have

improved this situation as it was occurring. When this situation occurred, I had been working at
the bank for about three weeks, so I didn’t have many connections or relationships built yet in
these departments. When I first read Amy’s email, I was terrified to respond because I didn’t
know her personally and the email was intimidating. Now, though, we are familiar with each
other and she even apologized for how her email came across. Had we had this working
relationship at the time of the issue, I would have felt much more comfortable responding and
dealing with the situation on my own.

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

Given what I now know about the political frame, I would have handled this situation
much more like the adult I am. Granted, I am only twenty-two years old which I know is young
in the working world, but I backed away like a scared little kid from responding to Amy’s email
and let my manager defend me. Sure, there is value in sticking up for those on your team and
I’m grateful that Sally did this for me, but I felt that I had no power to do so on my own. I was,
and still sort of am, under this impression that I have no power as a new employee in an entry
level position though.
To change this, I need to start recognizing the power I do have in this organization and
utilize that when interacting with other departments. The text says, “Power in organizations is
basically the capacity to make things happen. In my role in VMS, I do have the power to make
things happen otherwise my job wouldn’t exist. I think appreciating my power as well as others
is going to give me a new perspective and a new take on the politics of mt organization. I know
I don’t want to be scared ever again to respond to an email, so recognizing my power will,
hopefully, be a bit of a confidence boost as well.

Reference or References

Bolman, L. & Deal, T. (2017). Reframing Organizations. John Wiley & Sons.