OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Symbolic Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:

1. Describe the symbolic frame

2. Apply the symbolic frame to your personal case situation

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

CONFIDENTIAL: In my department, all of our activities were data-driven. We

were collecting scientific clinical research data, to prove that our investigational new
drugs (IND) were therapeutically significant, efficacious, and safe, so that the FDA would
approve our INDs. My supervisor, Carl, had worked in Clinical Research for over 10
years, previously he worked in Data Management and had a very strong understanding of
the industry standards and regulations. Carl knew every role in our department, inside
and out because he worked his way from junior level associate up to Senior Manager
over the 10 years he worked in our department. When he was promoted, he immediately
went to work standardizing our processes and updating our outdated SOPs, and creating
a new quality control (QC) tool to help our processes align with the industry standards.
Nine of the eleven PMs in my department felt that he had no right to change things and
expect them to do their job differently, so they continued to refuse to change the ways
they were doing some of their processes or to use the new QC tool.

My role in BioPharm was to support the Program Managers (PMs), I was the
newest addition to the team. Carl had trained me when I started and he was one of the
best trainer and manager I have ever had the privilege of working under. I defended him
several times in meetings because I knew his work ethic, values and intentions and
because the changes he was implementing were long overdue and desperately needed.

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

After reading about the symbolic frame in organizations, I realized that there are
so many ways that the symbolic impacts our everyday lives, especially when it comes to
working in teams. We often had misunderstandings in communication between team
members. Looking back at the team dynamic through the symbolic frame, I now believe
that most of the team’s issues were rooted in the fact that our members were remote
(home-based) employees, scattered throughout the United States, meaning that each of us
were from very different cultures. For example, cultural norms, attitudes, and social
rituals in Philadelphia are vastly different from those in rural Idaho. Being in different
locations also contributed to the struggle with having a shared language. Not only were
we each starting with regional language differences, we also had two sets of acronyms,
one within BioPharm and another within the CRO (Bolman & Deal, 2017, p 270). I had
to keep a printed copy of BioPharm's Acronym dictionary on my desk to decode emails,
because everything had an acronym: reports, people and meetings. I would often receive
requests like, “Please email the KPI to the GMAL and PBAL before the next bi-monthly
KEG”.

There were a handful of team members, including Carl, who lived close to
BioPharm and worked on campus, giving them a proximal advantage by having access to
face-to-face time with the boss and other team mates on a daily basis. The PMs who
worked side by side with Carl in the office, supported him completely and did not give
him any pushback, because he “lead by example and not command” (Bolman & Deal,
2017 p. 270). For the PMs located remotely, they received his communications with
them as commands, since the remote team members only work on location at BioPharm
every 3 months to gather for an in person global meeting. This meeting often felt
pointless, but I know it was more of “an occasion to clear the air and promote collective
bonding” than to actually accomplish anything constructive (Bolman & Deal, 2017, p.
287). It was at one of these meetings where the PMs waged their initial public battle
against Carl and his initiates to streamline the operations and revise our departmental
procedures, a lot of gossip and complaining had been going on for some time behind
closed doors.

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

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 One other symbolic aspect I would like to consider is how Carl's gender and
family dynamic impacted our team’s ability to perceive Carl for who he was and not for
who they assumed he was based on their limited interactions with him. Carl was the only
male in the department, which often contributed to him being the only one left out of
non-work related activities, such as our “girls night out”. He once told me that he often
felt ostracized in conversations because he was an only child, had never been married,
and didn’t have any children, so he felt he could not relate with most of our non-work
conversations. Every other person in our department was either married or divorced and
all had children. I believe these differences often made it difficult for Carl to feel like he
truly belonged.

One way I used organizational symbols of storytelling and play in an effort to

build a deeper working relationship with my coworkers, including Carl, was by offering
to have lunch with them once a week via Zoom (Bolman & Deal, 2-17, p 273). I did this
before Zoom was popular, or common. Carl and I would have an informal Zoom lunch
together every Friday. I really enjoyed this hour each week with Carl where we would
talk about everything and anything except work! We shared stories from our childhood,
chatted about life and even discussed personal things. I believe this was one reason why I
was able to frame Carl’s action in a way that reflected reality because I got to know him,
who he really is, his values, work ethics, what makes him tick, through the many hours of
stories and conversation we shared. I could see his intentions and efforts for what they
really were, if the PMs had invested time in getting to know him, I believe they would
have appreciated his efforts, rather than fight to get him removed from our team.

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

The symbolic frame encompasses so many facets of a person, society and cultural
dynamics. There are probably a hundred ways that things could have been done
differently, but the thing I think would have been most helpful would have been for Carl’s
boss, our department head, to mandate that we have weekly Zoom calls where we could
see each other’s body language to help facilitate team dynamic and collaboration.
Cultural elements can be the heart and soul of a team’s success (Bolman & Deal, 2017, P.
275) We could have built trust and shared values by having informal, regular interaction
with each of our teammates. Often during my one-on-one Zoom lunches I would have my
coworkers and I would end up being a sounding board for them. My coworker’s shared
deeply private things with me about their personal and professional lives. It gave me

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 insights into why people did and felt the way they did. Looking back I wish I would have
used this information to build more unity. I wish I had found a way to mediate the
conflict better. At the time, I felt that if I shared with Carl how frustrated other’s felt, that
I would be breaking someone’s trust and confidentiality.

At the time, I didn’t know how to use what I knew about people in a way that
didn’t feel like I was betraying someone’s confidence in me. If the same thing happened
today, I would offer to mediate a conversation between the disgruntled PMs and Carl.
Since they trusted me enough to be a sounding board, I believe that they would have
allowed me to mediate a dialogue between them. This would have created a safe
atmosphere to share and be heard, without it feeling like a command or an attack.

Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and
leadership (6th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass (Perusall version)

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