OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

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.

The situation I described was with a past employer, USAA (United Services Automobile
Association) and all the layoffs they were doing. The culture there began to decline and
there was animosity in the office. There was a lack of guidance in all directions with
leadership providing little to no information as to what was happening.

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

USAA bases the company off of four values. service, loyalty, honesty, and
integrity. The structure of the company was very much based around these four values.
The first couple of years I lived by these values and the structure we were taught.
Unfortunately, through lack of leadership, the company began getting hit with violations
and fees. Slowly USAA was losing services such as mortgage lending. Originally, they
were doing every type of mortgage loan available but with the violations USAA had
accrued, they were forced to reduce those loan types to just three.

With the loss of business due to these violations, USAA decided to begin
reducing the workforce. Instead of focusing the efforts on fixing the compliance
violations, they let go of many employees. The first layoff hit hard and the entire
company had felt it. The structure was beginning to break. Leadership was more
interested in covering up the issues instead of fixing anything. When covering up was not
solving the issues, reduction in salaries began, and later, another layoff hit. This time,
during COVID. The impact was even harder the second round. There wasn’t structure
any longer at this point.

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

1
 Structure can easily be followed. In this scenario, my focus would be on honesty
and integrity. I would not have let it get as far as it did. I would have been honest from
the start and hold true to the values that USAA believes in. Informing the staff on where
we are failing and then focusing on where we went wrong. By bringing light to the issue,
we can then immediately create a strategy to get out from under the issues. Senior
leadership would work hard to implement new trainings, compliance regulations, and we
would begin rolling out the changes.

There likely would be some major changes with upper leadership. Some new
faces coming in to assist with the changes. There could be some turnover with employees
as well. But my focus would be our employees and our customers. With changes in the
system, we wouldn’t have to restructure the company, but instead we would go back to
the roots that made the company. Re-focus on the values that built the company.

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

I would do everything differently from what USAA was doing at the time.
Looking back at the values that the company initially was built on is what I would do. I
would remember what we are made of and what the structure of the company had always
been. With that, I would rebuild what we loss, focus on the current issues at hand, and fix
the problem versus focusing on saving money and bunkering down. This course has
taught me so far that with thought we can do great things.
Chapter 5 had a lot about teams and goals. Several paragraphs on actual sports
teams for example. Just like in any team-based sport, the players have to have trust that
people of the company would have USAA’s back and will be there to catch the ball when
you let it go. Same goes for any business. You have to have trust that you created a good,
strong team that will carry you. When unfortunate events happen, you have to step back
and assess what the problem is and then come up with a system to fix the issues at hand.
A strong team can, and will do this together.

2
 References

Bolman, Lee G., and Terrence E. Deal. “Organizing Groups and Teams.” Reframing
Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ,
2021.

USAA Mission, Vision & Values | Comparably, www.comparably.com/companies/usaa/mission.

Accessed 25 Oct. 2023.