Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

whether a conclusion would be realistic or acceptable. Our editing of the text to avoid
evocative expressions elucidates that. That being aware of someone else’s opinions is
what Mead would call the presence of generalized others, through which the members
of the coordination not only can be members of staff of the same UAS but also
bear in mind that they work for and with colleagues and that they share with them a
lot of ideas on our reality.
Evaluation
I conclude that my advisory work of preparing conclusions which others formally have
to draw, is far from being a shrewd game of framing. From the very first beginning
unavoidably I bear the others in my mind. It’s not me who makes the differences, it is a
joint effort. Philosophically spoken I even don’t exist, although my ‘I’ exists. I cannot
imagine my work without the (virtual) presence of the other. By definition an advisory
position is interrelated and one can hardly discern the input of participants. Yet once a
year my superior and I show logical behaviour by being illogical. In our yearly evaluation
we commit an ex post facto fact fallacy (Shotter, 1993) by suggesting that all my
work was done by me. As my bonus depends on this fallacy, I can live with that.
4.7 Reflections from a complex responsive process-perspective
Looking back to the conclusions and recommendations as produced by the coordination
team, I am both happy and disappointed with the results. I am disappointed
because the results are a mixture of different perspectives on development and change,
a sort of impossible mixture of planning and planned spontaneity. I am happy
perhaps because at the end the introduction of open conversations gave me hope of
having promoted a stimulus for self-organization. From a common sense point of view
I could call the results lame compromises. However, reflections on self-organization
from a complex responsive process-perspective may elucidate other dimensions to
explain what happened.
Management control it will be
Although, at the end one could say that the way we worked is quite exploratory by
allowing ourselves to share and converge our opinions, the results (including the
planning of open conversations) are an expression of management control (Speklé,
2002). It is as if we proclaim the importance of self-organization, but being not confident
in its outcomes, we plan the self-organization in open conversations. That is why
I called it a paradox of planned spontaneity, but presumably in practice it will turn out
as something that is experienced as invented by the staff of the UAS, agreed upon by
the board and to be implemented by some members of staff. At the end I assume that
it will still be experienced as a monovocal Homan (2005, 2006) and planned change
initiated by the top and thus fruitless according to its own standards and unpredictable
in its outcome. It appears to be a victory for the social-systems change discourse in
which (quasi outside) managers and experts are making plans which have to be reali-
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