OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

Greg Strapach 1/22/2023

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural 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.

I will be looking into the situations from the last two decades that include illegal
activities from Wells Fargo employees. Some of these activities include, opening new
accounts for customers without their consent, opening new credit cards, and carry into
illegal foreclosures and repossession of property. These activities spand a large amount of
time so I will be focusing in on two larger stories. 2016 news story of the fradulant
accounts as wells as the recent news of the illegal activities that caused the bank more
than 3 billion in fines. I am especially curious to understand why these behavior persist
even after being caught and fined.

My role will be one of an external party looking inward. I would like to dive deep and
examine some of the practices that lead to the fradulant behavior as well as understand
why it persists. My interest lies in understanding the corporate culture that has lead to
such behaviors and the leadership behaviors that have failed this organization. I am not
affiliated with Wells Fargo in any way and have not ties to this particular bank. My
curiosity stems from the repeated behaviors that seem to continue to occur and the loyalty
of the customers and workers that they employ.

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

Organizational structure describes how an organization is set up and functions. The

structural frame helps to describe how information flows throughout the broader
organization and helps to illustrate how leadership is set up. It is important to note that it
is not just the organizing of leaders and workers but also the coordination of
responsibilities. Who can make decisions and on what, are just as important as the layout
of personnel throughout an organization.

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 As I take a look at the Wells Fargo organization. They have a pretty straightforward
organizational strucure with senior leaders at the top and the flow of information trickling
towards the bottom. Bolman and Deal described this type of structure as a simple
hierarchy, where middle managers report up to the top (Bolman and Deal, p 104). In the
case of Wells Fargo, senior leaders pushed to drive profits and shareholder value by
cascading unrealistic goals and expectations down towards their regional branches.

This type of top down leadership structure is exactly wbat helped to create the toxic
environment that lead to the pour decisions that were made between 2011 and 2016. The
setting of unrealistic sales goals by the top lead to pour decisions being made at regional
branches. “Employees were encouraged to order credit cards for pre-approved customers
without their consent, and to use their own contact information when filling out requests
to prevent customers from discovering the fraud” (Wikipedia, 2022). This culture was
driven by senior leaders’ who pushed to drive more sales through adding on additional
services customers didn’t need or want.

Due to this top down structure, Wells Fargo created an environment in which employees
rarely questioned and just fell in line. The only thing that matter during this time was
achieving the goals set by the organization and unfortunately this lead to the fraudulent
bahvior that took place.

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

Considering how structure could produce an alternative course of action for Wells Fargo,
I would have to say that changing the organizational structure to an all channel one would
have helped offset this fraudulent behaviors. You see, in an all channel structure,
leadership communication flows in all directions. This means that when the unrealistic
goals came down from the top, local leaders whould have given their input on them.
Individual branches would have shared how they felt about the pressure being put on
them and leaders closer to the top would have listened.

This structure could have created an environment for learning and growing. Figuring out
exactly what the customer needs and how to get there could have thrived. Those closest
to the work often know the best way of solving problems. However, when you have a
very direct top-down leadership structure, those at the bottom rarely are heard. I would
highly recommend restructuring to include more voices from throughout the
organization, not only from regional managers but the workers they lead as well.

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

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 Given what I learned about this frame, I will continue to look into the structure of the
organizaiton and how decisions were made. I want to understand more deeply why
middle managers went with the status qou even though they knew it was wrong. Now, I
am not naiive, I know to an extent the bonus money factored into their decision making,
but I am curious as to how great the pressure was from the top. I wonder if there are
reports from employees feeling as though they had no other choice but to open these
accounts. This reminds me of the experiment that showed how much power a person of
authority has over someone, even when the individual knows what they are being asked
to do is wrong.

Once I have a better understanding of what truly transpired, I would be prepared to offer
up solutions and alternative structures for this organization. I already spoke briefly of one
such structure, the all channel, because I do believe this one could foster better
communication amongst Wells Fargo’s employees. In addition, when considering the
public blowback facing this organization, they would need to show how they are truly
changing form the inside out.Leveraging the voices of those they lead can help facilitate
this and grow back some trust that was lost by the consumers.

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 References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and

leadership (7th ed.). Jossey-Bass. 

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, December 20). Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal. Wikipedia.

Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-
selling_scandal