Simple Ideas of Reframing for a Complex International Education Group 1

Simple ideas of Reframing for a Complex International Education Group

Yifang Shi

Oakland University
Simple Ideas of Reframing for a Complex International Education Group 2

Abstract

Weiming Education Group provides international students management services for the

US program. Weiming team members are all experienced educators who understand the language

and cultural nuances of Chinese and American students and the importance of serving the

students to give them the best opportunity to succeed in the U.S. I will generalize the issues from

four frames that Bolman and Deal addressed in the book. I will analyze the successful and

unsuccessful managements inside the company and state my suggestions to improve the odds

and to understand what is really going on.

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Introduction

Weiming Education Group is a private institution in China, providing K-12 education

with its innovative curriculum, highly qualified teachers, service-oriented culture, and global

outreach. Weiming now operates twenty-two kindergartens and twelve schools offering grades1-

12. There are, in total, about 30,000 students and 3,500 teachers across many major cities in

China. Weiming USA, is a subsidiary company, and was established to provide essential

management services for the international students in the U.S. Weiming organization has a

complex structure and the staffs have intricate and perplexing relationship with the higher

authorities. To some extent, communication among the group is slow and cumbersome. The staff

there has been having good relationship though the senior management team has been changed

for the past few years. However, professional development seems to overlooked. Politically,

Weiming has enormous power in the international education arena but the political battles inside

the company has still been changeling. Weiming Education Group gains inspiration and direction

from the symbol character- Adam, who enhances the organization teamwork and motivates the

students.
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Frame One: The Structural Frame

“Suitable forms of coordination and control ensure that diverse efforts of individuals and

units mesh” (2008, p45). Through dividing up the basic work and coordinating multiple efforts,

the directors and managers from Weiming Education Group set up a highly efficient structure for

the academic department. The international student coordinator manager is in charge of Ten

international student coordinators who work at different partner schools to support the students.

The manager reports to the Director of Academic. One ESL specialist works at the company

office and support the ISCs (international student coordinators) on tracking student grades,

scheduling after school tutors, purchasing TOEFL/SAT test preparation materials and etc. One

student activity coordinator works on creating cultural, and educational activities for the

students. The main goal for the academic department is to educate the students successfully and

cultivate them to be independent in the U.S.

Weiming Education Group uses the dual authority structure identified by Bolman and

Deal. Under this type of structure, the academic department staffs are lead by the director and

work tightly on their common commitment and specific goal—to better serve the students. They

plan together ahead and work individually in their assigned schools. They work collaboratively

in the office while they are having concerns or issues and solve problems under an opening,

positive, and friendly working environment. However, most of the time, the lower levels have

very limits to access to the boss. Communication among the group is very quick and effective

but to the boss, it is very slow and more cumbersome (Bolman & Deal, 2008). The staff may

feel frustrated and less motivated. They will be end up with relying on their managers or

directors most of the time and seldom explaining their opinions to the bosses.
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According to Bolman and Deal (2008), top managers give a team clear authority and then

stay out of the way, and management releases collective energy and creativity (p.107). However,

some of the management team members manage the staffs by using a Mom-Style. They are

willing to help their staff to solve every tiny issue personally and push them irrationally instead

of giving them a right direction. I feel like the Mom-Style leadership may make the staffs feel

stupid about themselves. Individuals have different working style and preference. A good leader

can help the team establish clear goals, give them a great many of strategies, and take action to

address problems.

Frame Two: The Human Resource Frame

Bolman and Deal mentioned that “people and organization need each other. Orgaizations

need ideas, energy, and talent; people need careers, salaries, and opportunities” (2008, p117). A

meaningful and satisfying work can motivate individual’s internal and potential talent and lead

them to succeed. Why people prefer to do thing A rather than B? Because people have

motivations from A mostly and A can satisfy their needs. Weiming Education Group realized the

importance of hiring the right people, so they started to re-structure the senior management team

and made the new team more productive by paying them a competitive salary.

Weiming serves as an international education agency. The company understand how

important the students and parents are. Therefore, they hired more valuable staffs to do parents

and students’ communication. They start to understand and respond to the needs of their

customers. However, Weiming pay less attention to the staff’s needs. Weiming needs people for

their energy, effort, and talent. Unfortunately, the staffs haven’t received a satisfied intrinsic or

extrinsic rewards. The company would loss talented and loyalty people if they could not do well

in building up a healthy relationship between the people and the company.

Simple Ideas of Reframing for a Complex International Education Group 6

Weiming staffs communicate very openly. Staffs have a close relationship, and work

collaboratively. They generalize their social skills to build effective relationship at work.

However, while thinking about how much Weiming invest in employees, I realized that I haven’t

had a useful and efficient professional development for more than three months. The monthly

professional development that leaded by my manager has been running as a “problem solve

meeting”. Among a full day PD, we usually spend half day on raising up questions and finding

solutions. The other half day will be used for the manager to arrange the coming assignments.

Personally, I feel I am wasting my time for the called “professional development”. I assuming

most of the budgets for our PD are paid to lunch. It’s good for the staff to get together once a

month and meet to solve problems. However, we need more professional trainings to develop our

working skills.

According to Bolman and Deal, the benefits to invest employees are long-term and

elusive (2008, p146). A group of highly professional workers will better serve the students, will

abstract more customers and will build up a good reputation for the company.

Frame Three: The Political Frame

Politics is a game, business management is a game, and the education is too. From

district to school, from principals to staffs, from teachers to students, games are happening every-

where. School leaders are the authorities and staffs are partisans; while teacher are authorities,

students are partisans.

Gamson (1968) offers the idea that partisans and authorities are often central to the

politics of both organizations and society. In the school system, principals function as authorities

and teachers as partisans. Weiming Education Group is running as a school system. The
Simple Ideas of Reframing for a Complex International Education Group 7

executive director functions as the principal and make compulsory decisions about food policy in

the dorm, staff days-off, budget using, or which community activity to join or sponsor. The

executive director initiates social control, and staffs and students are the recipients of his

decisions. Weiming Staff and students in turn try to influence the executive director. They argue

for more individual budget or justify a better food policy in the dorm. They may pick a staff who

has the best relationship with the executive director to lobby him after he disagrees with

something. They may form an alliance (with colleagues, headquarters, and etc.) and try to

strengthen their bargaining position.

If the authorities can gain trust from the partisans, the authority will be accepted and

supported. The authorities can always use his powers to set up a social control. Conversely, if the

partisans have stronger powers, they will challenge the authorities. It is hard to find a balance

between the partisans and authorities but it is easy for these two parties to generalize their

potential sources of powers to check and to balance. To some extent, an organization leader is

always willing to show a perfect and special personality to his staff and to gain supports. This is

what Bolman and Deal called “Personal Power” (2008, p197). “Individuals who are attractive

and socially adept because of charisma, energy, stamina, political smarts, gift of gab, vision, or

some other characteristic-are imbued with power independent of other sources” (2008, p197). A

successful leader with powerful authority is the one who has a powerful smell, a powerful vision,

and a powerful charisma. As French and Raven (1959) mentioned, “referent power” is the power

that can have people decide whether they like you or want to be like you (2008, p197). Weiming

CEO has been working here for only a couple of months and he soon gains trust from the staff as

he expends his honesty, humor, and hearty to the company. The Weiming leaders are always

willing to spends time to build and cultivate ties with the staffs. Obviously, the staffs can often
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have lunch together along with their leaders. Personally, I had a seven-hours dinner with my

manger and director last weekend in Shangri-La restaurant. We talked joyfully in the quiet corner

and enjoyed the Chinese dim-sum along with each other. Because we have good relationships,

we are friends and we have the alliances and networks, the work among three of us can be a lot

easier and smoother. From a teacher point, if Weiming staffs can build up a good relationship

with Weiming students and develop reputation, it will be much easier to get things done. The

more the students like the staffs, perhaps the better job they will do. Since Weiming is an

educational service company who is facing a big competition among thousands of Chinese

service companies, it is all about how much the students like Weiming, how well they will do on

the task, and how much we have in common.

Frame Four: The Symbolic Frame

A small symbol with a simplified meaning can make an organization powerful.

According to Bolman and Deal, in the ancient period, people created symbols to resolve

confusion, find direction, and anchor and faith. Nowadays, people use symbols to bonds an

organization, unites people, and help an enterprise to accomplish a desired end.

Weiming Education Group created an animation character called Adam as the symbol of

the company. Adam has his own Wechat (a Chinese social media like Twitter) account and posts

moments by himself often. Anyone who follows Adam’s Wechat can communicate with him for

any issues and get to know his life at Weiming. He pretends to be a real and experienced

Weiming person. Adam posts his feeling which is actually a unique and powerful Weiming

feeling. Adam steps into Weiming staffs, students and parents’ lives and offers energy to them.

Adam plays as Weiming’s symbol, characterizes what Weiming stands for, and helps people feel
Simple Ideas of Reframing for a Complex International Education Group 9

special about what they do (Bolman and Deal.2008). In addition, Adam is the Weiming hero

whose words and deeds exemplify and reinforce important core values which is to provide

quality education. Powerfully, Adam carries values and serve as a strong icon. Through playing

as the core symbol of an organization, a good animation character can tell you who you are and

who the company is, can foster collaboration and share knowledge, and can lead people into the

future.

By carrying the symbol’s spirit, the leadership group give inspiration and direction to the

whole organization and the leaders are the people who have deeper understanding about the

symbol character. Adam has a thoughtful and kind-hearted personality. Therefore, Weiming

headquarters may take advantage of this, and possess the skills of setting up good examples to

the staffs and students, not only commands. Students and staffs like Adam since he is the hero of

the organization and always passes along positive spirit and provide people warm feelings. If we

all were to admit Adam’s spirit and values, we would enhance the teamwork and motivate the

students. Weiming starts to realize that how important the reputation is at the beginning of 2017

and they are willing to have Adam to set up a right figure for the company. There are changes

inside and outside the company but we all have to commit to this new play called “change”.

Adam is new to us, company policies are new to us, and students are changing every year by

year as well. Fairly, Adam provides us an internal glue and a basis of confidence and support. As

Cox (1969, p.13) mentioned in The Feast of Fools, our link to yesterday and tomorrow depend

also on the aesthetic, emotional and symbolic aspects of human life-on saga, play and

celebration. Without festival and fantasy, man would not really be a historical being as well.
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Conclusion

Our vision and mission at Weiming Education Group is to promote cultural exchange of

East and West pedagogy and instructional practice, to promote the development of global

perspectives for both educations and students. Bolman and Deal (1997) indicate that the purpose

of introducing the four frames to organizations is to help “leaders enrich the ideas and

approaches they bring their work” (p. 5). Incorporating the four frames into Weiming leadership

training may be helpful if the leaders, after learning about the four frames, are able to understand

how essential their leadership and reframing are. After reviewing the four chapters, I feel it will

be easy to create lists of Weiming’s strengths and weakness and find solutions. The most

important and urgent thing that the leaders should realize and start to do is “change”. Weiming

has to interpret what is occurring and how they should determine the appropriate action due to

different situations. The structural frame emphasized efficiency and effectiveness, therefore,

leaders may learn to obtain organizational goals via control and proportion. The human resource

frame inspires the Weiming leaders to attain organizational aims via meaningful and satisfying

work. The third frame calls the company’s attention on competition in the world and direct the

leaders to obtain organizational goals via negotiation, consultation and compromise. Finally, the

symbolic frame emphasized on meaning. The leaders will learn to obtain organizational aims by

interpretative rituals and ceremonies.

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References

Bolman, Lee G. and Deal, Terrence E. (2008) Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice,

and Leadership. Fourth Edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey- Bass, A Wiley Imprint.

Cox, H. (1969). The Feast of Fools. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

French, J.R.P., and Raven, B.H. (1959). “The Bases of Social Power.” In D. Cartwright

(ed.), studies in Social Power. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Institute for Social Research.