Ashley Group

OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet
1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

I will be choosing to keep the name of the organization and its members anonymous to protect
privacy. I work as an administrative assistant for “organization.” There are other administrative
assistants I also work with daily. Some essentials of the job are managing clientele enrollments,
maintaining hard files and e files, and daily communication with supervisors, staff, and clientele.

There is a new system being implemented that will be replacing the old system. Another
administrative assistant was promoted to a scheduling position that will be useful once the new
system is up and running. The situation is ‘Bella” now has too much responsibility on her plate
and cannot keep up with all the work. The work she is doing should be split between a team of
three people, but it is all on one person right now. She has expressed her distress to her
supervisors, but no further actions have been taken to support her in this new role.

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

The organization follows the strategic apex model, which is a structure where in there is a team
of top executives or a board of directors that ultimately make decisions. This is something ti keep
in mind when considering the situation. Because there is so much change occurring, directors
and board executives seem to pay no mind to this cry for help. Their minds and resources are
occupied by bigger and better things. Employees are being trained to do the tasks of three people
in other departments as well. Employees are becoming overworked and underpaid, and many
have become very frustrated with this structure.

The organization is also planning on expanding their company, which is an irresponsible move. I
say this because there is so much uncertainty with the company currently because of all the
change and transition. It would be a waste of resources to not invest in the currect companies
processes first, and once that has been perfected then it will be a good idea to expand. Right now,
there are many errors in their processes and employees are becoming burnt out from all the chaos
and uncertainty.

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

If it were in my power to decide the next course of action in solving this issue, I would first find
ways in how I can support Bella with her new role. (I already am currently doing this because I
don’t want her feeling overwhelmed or like she doesn’t have any support) I would then begin

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speaking with HR and department heads about how Bella has expressed how overwhelmed she is
and how we need to hire more staff to support in these new responsibilities.

I would follow these actions first by getting feedback from my team members that I work with
everyday before addressing things with higher staff. It would be the only way for me to
communicate the correct perspective of what is going on and how we need to support in this
matter. I would then address these concerns with the department heads and see if we can come to
a solution that is best for Bella and the organization.

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

If I was in a position of a supervisor, then I would have held off on promoting Bella to this new
role until it was determined what exactly would be expected of the role. The reason she is feeling
so overwhelmed is because there was probably no set expectation of the role, and when she was
promoted she understood the role as something else than what she is doing now.

There is a disconnect between her expectations of the role and the supervisors’ expectations. I
would have decided what the expecations of the role were first, instead of changing the role as
soon as Bella was promoted to it. I think Bella was a great fit for the role so I would have still
suggested her being the best candidtate, but the role should have been better decided on with role
responsibilities.

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Reference or References

- Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and

Leadership (7th ed.). Jossey-Bass.