OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Political Frame Worksheet

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

Southwest Parking Services is a large valet and parking management company that does
business in six states across the southwestern United States. It provides valet and shuttle
service at restaurants, malls, hospitals, nightclubs, stadiums, hotels, and casinos and manages
parking structures. The situation involved losing a major retail valet client that generated
several million dollars of revenue for the company. The client accounted for about 40% of
the company's business. With the loss, the company was faced with laying off multiple
account managers as well as over one hundred valets and parking attendants. Solving the
situation required a major strategy shift and rethinking the management structure to allow
more lateral coordination and empowerment of different members of the management team.
My role was as an account manager, but as the longest-serving manager, I had developed
long-standing relationships in the organization. Because of this, I was a voice in the planning
and decision-making.

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

As one would expect, the loss of a significant source of revenue cast a pall of
uncertainty on the organization. Among the executive management team, there was a
realization that some of them would probably not survive the crisis. Political dynamics
cannot be avoided, and they affect how resources, including jobs, will be affected in
times of scarcity and ambiguity (Bolman & Deal, 2021). Several of the executives and
managers recognized the political dynamics and went into action to secure their positions
in the company by leveraging their long-time relationships within the company,
especially with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Unfortunately, Robert, the retail
division director, was not as astute politically. Even though he was excellent at his job

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 and was pivotal in developing the plan to move forward, he lacked the relationships
others had, ended up being cast as a scapegoat, and lost his job.

There was a clear need for a plan to move forward. It was necessary to develop a
vision and a strategy since there is no real vision until a strategy is developed to
implement it (Bolman & Deal, 2021). Once the strategy was developed, it needed to be
presented to the entire company. There was a fear that key employees would leave if they
did not like what was presented, so a plan was developed to win them over and get them
on board. Ironically, even though he was not gifted at personal politics, Robert was
masterful at presenting and selling the vision and strategy to the company. He lost his job
but probably did more to save the company than any other individual employee.

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

There was no real alternative course of action to avoid the situation, but things could
have been done to come up with a new vision and strategy with less disruption to the
company. Because I already know the relevant relationships, I would immediately reach
out and form a team to begin assessing the situation and come up with a strategy to move
forward. As we worked on a strategy, I would make sure that everyone was on the same
page. And as Kotter (as cited in Bolman & Deal, 2021) suggested, I would include
potential opponents and involve them in the communication to get their input as well as
keep an eye on any plans they may have.

Because the final decision on any course of action belonged to the CEO, I would use
my relationship with him to determine how he felt about the proposals as they were being
developed. While all of our jobs were potentially on the line, he was the company's
majority stockholder, so his input was absolutely necessary. I would also use that
relationship, along with friendships with other influential executives, to ensure that when
we embarked on the new strategy, the right people would be in the correct positions to
achieve success.

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

It is difficult for me to imagine much that I would do differently in this situation. Due
to the circumstance, the company needed to change course. Overall, I believe that the
course of action taken was beneficial in the long run. However, there were issues in the
short term due to the makeup of the management and executive teams. This is one area
where I believe I would have done things differently.

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 The first thing I would have done differently would be to have the CEO be completely
open about the situation and alert everyone to what was happening. I understand that this
could be a risky move, but there is also the potential to gain the trust and goodwill of all
the employees. As it was, there was a lot of uncertainty leading to the loss of many
quality employees to competitors. I would have also encouraged Robert, the Director of
Retail accounts) to work on shoring up his power base. Robert fell into the trap of
believing that his ability was enough and all he needed to do was "follow the rules and do
good work" (Bolman & Deal, 2021. p.217). Robert's leadership skills and business
acumen would have greatly helped the company moving forward.

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 Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership (7th
ed). Jossey-Bass.