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.

My role is a full-time active duty human resource sergeant that relies on software and
systems to facilitate accurate data to provide snapshots of our units readiness, and provide
positive solutions for service members. The situation is that the Army has changed our human
resource systems that have been used for decades to a new dashboard style system. For years we
have been able to dissect an issue and apply a solution to the problem because of our experience
and expertise. However, that is not the case with the new system, people are still learning how to
navigate around the system to provide those solutions, a lot of its potential is still unknown.

I will analyze how this situation changed our human resource capabilities to include:
accountabiltiy, personnel actions, awards, promotions and customer service. I will determine if
this situation affected the poltical frame of the organization and processes in which we used daily
to facilitate the readiness of our service members. I will reflect on certain issues within our old
systems and how they were addressed with our new system, conduct a deeper look into how
these issues affected the force and how it has impacted the culture of the organization.

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

Through the poltical lens, politics have affected the Army in many different ways. Politics
have a significant impact on why the Army is an ever changing organization. There is debates,
negotiation and bargaining that take place constantly which are some of the key reasons why
politics have influenced my specific situation. Elected officials want to see specific changes in
their tenure, some of these changes take years to enact in the military. However, depending on
the situation people will continue to push the proposed agendas.

In my situation, elected officials wanted a more seamless and streamlined human resource
system that would meet the needs prescribed by Army doctrine and provide readily available
information to the service members themselves. While this sounds great on paper, the

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implementation of the system reduced readily available information to the service member and
conflicted with their original intent. Although for most organization, this system would have
been changed and adjusted to meet that original intent. The same politics that were involved with
the launch would have to reimplemented to be adjusted, once again this takes time. In the
meantime, the service member has to make adjustments to align with this new system that is
fraught with issues.

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

I would use organizational politics to readdress these issues that we are having with the
system. There are people that know that this system lacks the functionality that our previous
systems had. By using the bargaining principles that we addressed in the reading, it would
become apparent that the bigger the threat the more power we have as an organization (Bolman
& Deal, 2021). By instilling the threat of eliminating the system, it may provide some significant
visibility on how this system is crippling the Armys ability to to provide adequate readiness to
the force.

Although any changes that affect anything in the military take time to implement. To bypass
some of these rigorous wait times, it may be best to provide tangible data and analysis to
pinpoint the root causes of our lack of lethality. The only way this would happen would be to get
everyone on the same page and understand the systems negative impact. However, the problem
with that, is that the systems processes are tied directly to one specific career field in the Army.
This means, that other service members can only see specific data, while the ones responsible for
the system can see behind the scenes where the issues lie.

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

As I previously mentioned, there are a variety of different avenues that I would have chosen
rather than what was implemented. The first specific political proposition would have been to
negotiate a continuation of the old systems until the new system was fully capable. The argument
could be made that people would have continued to utilize the old system and not use the new
system until it was too late. However, I would argue that whatever parts of the old system that
people we using would be tracked and then implemented on the new system to eventually phase
out the old system entirely.

The second political proposition would be to reimplement existing systems due to the lack of
tangible data that the new system provides. Unfortuantely, this would not happen as the military
has already invested an enormous amount of money on the new system, that they will just push
through the trials and tribulation until new changes are implemented. Although, through shared
understanding and hardship new ideas are always open to political interpretation, this could mean
that the eventual change to the new system may happen in the forseeable future.

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 References

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

Field manual. Army Publishing Directorate. (n.d.).

https://armypubs.army.mil/ProductMaps/PubForm/Details.aspx?PUB_ID=1023495

New U.S. Army Human Resources System is the change the army and its soldiers need. Army
University Press. (n.d.).
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/
September-October-2022/Eggers/