Reframing, Bolman and Deal Essay

A simple way to develop a political map for any situation is to create a two-dimensional diagram mapping players (who is in the game), power (how much clout each player is likely to exercise), and interests (what each player wants).

Bolman & Deal suggest that leaders display leadership behaviors in one of four types of frameworks: Structural, Human Resources, Political and Symbolic (Bolman & Deal, 2008). Unlike the other four frames, the Symbolic frame sees an organizational life an ongoing drama: individuals coming together to create context, culture, and meaning as they play their assigned roles and bring artistry and self-expression to their work (Schein, 2004). It is important for leaders who utilize the Symbolic leadership that what he or she does is important. The manager then has to relay this vision to the employees instilling in them that their work and the work of the organization is important and meaningful. Symbolic frame is important to every organization because it takes into account the traditions, ceremonies and rituals that make the company unique from other companies or departments within the organization itself.

In his book, Heraclitean Fire: Journeying on the Path of Leadership, Dr. Michael Cary (1999) introduces us to the theory of the five frames for effective leadership. Organizational life is filled with an abundance of unique challenges and conflict. The Five Frames model serves as a valuable tool to leadership by revealing the alternate perspectives of organization members. According to Carey (1999) “These five frames – rational, human, systems, political, and cultural – offer different angels for looking at organizational life, and each frame’s proposed outline of the key dynamics of situations does have value in understanding why things happen the way they do and what must be a part of any plan to make things better” (p. 91).

Another article that I read helped me understand more of what Laszlo Bock is referring to when he says management needs to have a broader point of view. In this article The Evolution of Management, the author talks about the different styles of management that have been adopted by leaders to date and it seems that what used to work before just will not get the job done today.

The chapter opens with a case—Robert F. Kennedy High School—depicting the many problems facing David King, the new principal of a deeply troubled urban high school. A school that opened with high hopes only a few years ago now finds itself mired in conflict and dissatisfaction. King’s first meeting with his new administrative staff produces a blow-up in which a male housemaster physically threatens the chair of the English department. By the end of the case, the situation feels overwhelming. Is there hope? The authors follow

This book views technology as something that has both advantages and disadvantages. Apart from enhancing communication through the facilitation of information exchange, technology has also brought with itself a

Bolman and Deal?s (1997) frames offer a great tool to analyze an organization however, before adequately developing an understanding to effect positive change in any organization, it is vital that all members can clearly recognize the similarities and differences of those frames if they truly aspire to fashion a learning environment to spearhead change within in the organization. Each of the four frames, as with ideologies of leadership, ultimately exist simultaneously in any organization, at some level or another, however, there will always be just one that predominantly stands out above the rest; the key to successfully implementing these frames, no matter which may be more prevalent than another, is that leaders and members must develop the ability to learn about the frames and discover which would best fit the needs, and the need for change, within the organization. Then, and only then, can change occur in a manner that allows equal representation of all four frames, as outlined by Bolman and Deal (1997), to expand on the productivity of members as well as the organization?s mission, vision, and goals. Framing seems to be more of a process than a quick fix for any organization.

The techniques of counseling is a very interesting subject. After reading the first two chapters of the book, there are various techniques and ideas that caught my attention such as yield theory, termination, the tale of mithridates and the morale of the story. One among them that piqued my interest was the technique of reframing. I would define reframing as a way to look at a situation, relationship or person differently by changing its meaning. The idea behind the technique is to show the client a different perspective or point of view of an incident that affected them deeply.

Managers make many decisions every day. Thankfully there are many tools available to a manager as they make these decisions. Tiffany is a General Manager of a franchise in the quick service restaurant industry. She is faced with decisions dozens of times in one day. A large portion of the decisions that she is faced with are made to solve structured problems, however, sometimes an unstructured problem does arise that she needs to address. As well as solving problems Tiffany must also make plans to in order to have structure and organization to achieve the goals set forth by herself and the company that she works for. Looking at some of the decisions that Tiffany has had to make recently it can been seen how she goes about solving

How can leaders find, frame, and formulate problems and opportunities, the resolution of which enables their organizations to create and capture value; (2) how can leaders organize knowledge sets to search for and efficiently create valuable solutions to chosen problems; and (3) how can leaders efficiently implement solutions to create and capture value? The essence of the problem-finding and problem-solving approach revolves around the identification of problem characteristics and the extent to which they entail corresponding impediments to the activities of problem finding, framing, and formulating; problem solving; and solution implementation. (Academy of Management Perspective. (2015).

The explosion of technology innovations within recent years has created a multitude of new and exciting ways for companies to conduct business. We now have technologies such as robotic manufacturing, electronic mail, online videoconferencing, and global networks to connect everyone and everything. Small and medium businesses are now able to cross all traditional boundaries that limited them in the past. Technology has fundamentally altered the way businesses are structured and changed the ways in which managers perform their duties. Communication is essential for any business and for a business to survive in this modern environment managers must effectively manage all of these technologies (Robbins, and Coulter 60).

While effective leaders should draw on all elements of all four frames, different sectors adopt slightly different certain frame preferences. Corporate sectors primarily prefer the structural frame with the primarily goal of profit. From the readings, both McNerney and Nardelli sought to make the company “number one or two in their markets.” Both CEO’s acted aggressively, which involved cutting costs and simplifying the organizational structure. However, only McNerney was successful due to Nardelli’s ego and poor application of the human resource and political frames in his relationships with employees and share-holders. Governments, on the other hand, do not have the flexibility of changing their organizing structure. The example of Giuliani

The impact of computer technology in the workplace has been enormous within the past decade, both positive and negative. Distant communication through the use of computers and mobile devices have overhauled the office setting completely. Email, social networking sites and the world of the Internet have opened a whole new avenue of communication. Technology has changed the entire workplace environment, the relationships, and how things get done.

The information technologies management team oversees the application of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit and manipulate data at Stryker. Today the organization is becoming more and more dependent on technology, so a team member like Alberto Vera has the ability to make decisions concerning such technologies and can make the company more viable and efficient. The software, programming, database, networking, web, and hardware specialists make it possible for Stryker to transfer online data efficiently. And anyone that can increase organizations efficiency can also derive power from this expertise.

In today’s ever changing economy, society’s idea of management is becoming increasingly more difficult to sustain with the continuous demands of the position. A successful manager must have a certain level of expertise and problem solving techniques to carry out the daily tasks required. Over the years, there have been various ideas on what management is, such as planning, organizing, leading and controlling.