OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Ethical Communities Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the four ethical communities
2. Apply the ethical communities 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.

(My company is anonymous, as to not reveal secrets, as such the name is made up)

At Blowfish Services, residential and commercial construction, there is an issue

of bloat, debt, and an extensive amount of quality issues. My role as the contractor is to
fix and repair the long list of issues. The primary issue involves a lack of control from the
project managers, lower, middle, and higher management as by freeing highly trained
experts to do what they do best produces many benefits but leads to challenges of
coordination and quality control (Bolman & Deal, 2021). Management has been
structured in such a way that issues go unseen for months, as they battle in a political
arena to maneuver above the trifle existence of lower management and the common
workers such as myself. Correcting issues made more difficult by the lack of positive
cultural concepts that are essential to team dynamics. In turn, the ethical responsibility of
the leaders has diminished significantly. My team and I are here to pick up the pieces that
were left and rejuvenate the project to the best of our ability.

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

The nature of the project’s ethics being poorly defined, as poor-quality work
being blamed on the workers only exacerbated the issue as quality continued to decline.
The ethics of the organization were inadequately represented or absent in the project
when we arrived, leading to a melancholy attitude as well as indifference towards the
project and the contractors. As we arrived at the project, I remember the experience being
relatively optimistic, but as time went on the project became soured. The project was in
desperate need of letting go of old tyrants and woods to begin the project in a more
positive light (Bolman & Deal, 2021).

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 Management, and moreover leadership behavior, was not ethically inclined. Little
responsibility was taken on the part of management as to the failure of the projects faults.
It was unfair, the spirit of fairness and respect was uncommon. Contractors were given to
much autonomy, space, and freedom, as the power and authorship of management did not
ensure quality work was being done to the fullest extent. Merely adequate in passing
inspections, and even so, much reworking had to be done after inspections (Bolman &
Deal, 2021). I remember several instances where money was wasted because leadership
failed to maintain ethical authorship, essentially, doing something that should not be
done, to cover up mistakes. Rather than fixing the quality itself, it was made to appear
sound, despite the contractors’ previous failure. Our team was tasked with fixing the
mistakes after the cover up. In some sense we reinstated ethical quality and craftsmanship
of a “job well done” (Bolman & Deal, p. 415). As such, accountability of prior or current
contractors on the work was being re-assessed as inadequate, consequentially, we were
hired to fix what others failed to do.

3) Recommend how you would apply one of the ethical communities for an alternative
course of action regarding your case.

An alternative for an absent ethical community would be for us as the contractor

to embody the excellence, caring, justice, and faith; in turn, reframing the ethical
community as our own (Bolman & Deal, 2021). Our team was dealing with an
organization, that had no ethical structure, as such, we had to embody and revive “the
moral virtues of leadership” (Bolman & Deal, 2021, p. 413). In an absence of ethics,
leadership must create it. Our team was a leader in reviving the project, therefore also
responsible for reviving the ethics of the organization. In some ways we could hold the
project to a higher standard of excellence, caring for our human resources, justice for
what is right or wrong to do and having faith in the troubled times of the project. This
also involved us pushing for accountability on the project and pointing out quality
concerns, areas for improvement.
All four ethical aspects were upheld by our team. We practiced excellence by
upholding quality as a primary factor of the project. With our ability to execute on
finished products with the best possible results (Bolman & Deal, 2021). Our team
contains tradesmen, focused on the craft, as such being successful and satisfy all the
quality standards of the project or perhaps exceeding expectations was a consistent goal
we met. Our alternative to what management suggested, which was to do adequate work,
and instead our alternative was quality work. Management had even suggested that we
should dumb down our work, as it’s quality outshined the rest, making mistakes more
glaring and noticeable.

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

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 If I was a manager in Blowfish services, I would have instated more care, and
justice, for the care of the teams, project quality, and contractors, and the justice for
accountability on the contractors behalf. Our team, despite managements advice to lower
our quality standards was deemed unethical by our team team. As such we should not
deviate from our company’s core values of excellence and quality, as these core values
are what we live by (Bolman & Deal, 2021). This diligent seeking of care and justice
would root out the pursuit of self-interest often sought by both management and worker
organizations (Bolman & Deal, 2021). The project was seen as an easy way to get a quick
buck because the standards for quality and teams were so low. That is why our team
persisted throughout the remainder of the project and to this day, because management
was soon forced to realize the necessity of quality work, an ethical obligation our team
provided.

As a manager, I also would have implemented a “more than profits” approach

(Bolman & Deal, 2021, p. 412). With a self-interested pursuit for wealth being a primary
factor for most contractors these days, rather than producing effective or quality work,
the consequences of such ethos can be witness in the design of the project. By using an
approach that lessens the importance of money replaced by satisfaction of quality, the
project overall would have benefitted. Of course, money is quite an ethical motivator.
Without it, nothing gets done, with it there will be those who violate ethical behavior for
it. Had I known going into this project, as a theoretical manager, I would have wasted far
less money on those individuals who did not care about the project, or in the hands of
someone willing to violate proper quality control for quicker turnaround and wealth. The
plague of this company still stands as improper management, structurally, utilization of
human resource, politically, symbolically, and ethically, contributed to the poor quality of
the project. I would have done many things differently, to prevent this project from
becoming the unstoppable turmoil, and ethical plight, negatively impacting the residents,
business, and customers. Far more issues were preventable as I realized while reflecting
on each frame.

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 References

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