The Elephant in the Room: Functional Social Support Networks
In this article, I unfold a unique and basic story… the problem of being a small fish — a fish whose work is researching excitable invisible elephants — Organizational Level Actors (OLAs).
For some context, this means that I study organization and use Functional Social Support (FSS) Communications and the theory of Organizational Level Actors (OLAs) to make sense of the phenomenon.
This work developed at the intersection of Conversational Design and Interaction Design, and, in mid-2010, started as a driving inquiry into a cross-generational transfer learning problem. (The topic area was routed in broad value streams, such as cultural sustainability and technological adoption).
My thinking is that… while Conversational Designers that focus exclusively on conversational Chatbots or Content have begun to shudder in the wake of ChatGPT, and may have again now that Bard is available, my applications of Conversational Design are otherwise focused. There are numerous design implications that cascade through a number of focus areas, namely — Health, Security, Marketing, Management and Human Resources.
But, we won’t unpack these focus areas here, we will, however, establish the fundamentals of this behavior and technology and why companies may take issue with FSS’ empirics.
SO…
Why Might the theory of OLAs be a problem for companies?
To uncover the motive we must first understand the function of OLAs.
What Are OLAs?
OLAs can be derived in a number of ways, but how they are understood to exist is in feeling. When you think about how groups of people can form among them an atmosphere that is not associated with any one person, but is instead something else entirely, this is an OLA. A unit of organization separate from individuals and the group. When it is said “Read the Room” what is meant is… “Read the OLA for its information and fall in line.”
Beyond this storied explanation, OLAs can also be thought to exist in more dynamic ways and less contained ways, for short instances.
Think of them as vehicles of the commons, and of exchange carrying payloads of information, little clouds — a Bio-technology and an Information Technology.
The Function of OLAs
Regardless of the quality or who benefits from the support given, OLAs are the things that relay information among people. When OLAs form, they make functional support communications possible.
While a number of things can be made available through OLAs, such as emotional content, or more likely sensory content, we will focus on information. Whether detailed information exchange occurs through highly nuanced sensory triggers or by some other mechanism is not known.
Evidence also suggests that Organizational Level Actors (OLAs) could, in effect, enable affordances of time. If this unique feature of OLAs is true and is not simply a perceptual trick, but some sort of quantum-state trace aspect of OLAs, the capacity to enable Design Thinking and Knowledge Management functions in excitingly nonlinear and agile ways suddenly becomes quite possible.
Food for thought, or… maybe just fuel for a movie concept!
Why is any part of this an issue?
Focusing on the real-time Functional Social Supports delivered through OLAs, which is perhaps the more easily considered and accepted manner of OLA-based exchange… when people understand the merit of their own contribution through such means, it raises questions of authorship. For those in authority positions driving reports to themselves through OLAs, or for those that hold temporary speaking positions where-through they integrate OLA-mediated transference of information… it can be difficult to attribute authorship to all the contributors. In these instances, it’s wise to be grateful.
However, it’s more common for such authority positions to gaslight contributors and take all the credit themselves, making contributors feel taken advantage of. When such authority positions, temporary or otherwise, are faced with acknowledging how they’ve been supported, or that communications can function through or around them through OLAs, they can get unruly.
It makes them feel like they don’t need to exist or that they may lose control over their “subordinate” supporters — a fear that in my opinion is not irrational. For times when translation is not necessary — say between different groups using different jargon or patterns of delivery — because the author can speak through OLAs themselves, managers can feel unneeded and retaliate in an effort to preserve their status within the hierarchy.
Makes me think of something my Pops used to say… “They name streets after [folks] like you…ONE WAY.”
That’s the thing though, conversations are not one way.
The future of the organization is people-centered AND connected.
If there’s anything you can learn about “conversation” from Conversational Design and how OLAs enable conversation, it’s that conversations are a two-way street. See Figure 1. Keep inquiry driving to and coming from the future you believe in.
Not to break my own metaphor but, communication infrastructures also need to be walkable — open/accessible and navigable…designed from the point-of-view of the people on the streets walking the walk — doing the work.
It’s on managers and facilitators to respect users and help them, whether they be employees, customers or stakeholders, that’s what human-centered service design is all about. Finding and keeping grounds that we can all stand on. But, maybe I’m just biased toward project-focused and flat communication cultures.
As designers become more connected through the practice of Design thinking and Making-Research in conjunction with OLAs, the function of traditional management may be reduced to make way for the Design distinction of Making-Managment. While it’s possible that more people will have ownership over making (the deliveries, the experiences and artifacts, digital or otherwise), the practice of making paths for teams and companies is how designers and non-designers, design participants, currently contribute to management and it’s how they will continue designing the future of work.
Designers and non-designers will close gaps and create “the path” forward together, and some or many of those paths may reduce employee count, or free up employees to focus on deeper previously neglected work.
In Summary
- It can be difficult to have some knowledge and go without acknowledgment from the broader community of much bigger fish.
- Not hiring Designers who circumvent the need for extra management layers in order to be more responsive and deliver faster more resonant work is a threat to a specific species of managers.
I’m not basic, but my research is. :P
Clap and share if it helps put talk to how you walk your walk!
Read more about OLA types toward the end of my article:
A Transtheoretical Model of Processing (link coming soon)
© 2023, desistodesign.
