Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
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communicati<strong>on</strong> is more or less coincidental when regarding the greater part of my<br />
assignments.<br />
In my work – apart from the support in the office I give regarding finance and c<strong>on</strong>trol,<br />
and human resources-policy – I combine advisory work with doing odd jobs for the<br />
executive board, nowadays complemented with my PhD-research. The odd jobs<br />
mostly have sensitivity: they are new, have impact <strong>on</strong> who we are and what we do, are<br />
<strong>on</strong> behalf of the executive board and implicate the whole UAS. Alternatively sometimes<br />
I represent the board, sometimes I manage a project, and sometimes I give an<br />
– unasked - opini<strong>on</strong> about a subject at hand.<br />
Managing the identity programme is an example of doing an odd job. Due to a discussi<strong>on</strong><br />
I had started in 2008 about the importance of paying attenti<strong>on</strong> to the historicity<br />
of our identity in relati<strong>on</strong> with the midterm strategy we were designing, identity had<br />
become an issue. An identity-management programme was started. September 2009<br />
I became the programme manager of this branding project, because the head of the<br />
office of communicati<strong>on</strong> – initially the programme manager - fell sick for a l<strong>on</strong>g time.<br />
However, from the beginning my positi<strong>on</strong> towards this programme was ambivalent. I<br />
am c<strong>on</strong>vinced that sharing values is an important c<strong>on</strong>diti<strong>on</strong> of having productive<br />
working relati<strong>on</strong>s. Moreover, working before in a different faculty I had experienced<br />
that sharing values can give an enormous boost for development and problem solving<br />
(Smeijsters and Sporken, 2004). Yet I am well aware of the sacrosanctity which a<br />
pers<strong>on</strong>al identity ‘has’ for each of us. I find a branding programme which aims at<br />
changing identities ‘from the outside’ rather unfeasible. So – as menti<strong>on</strong>ed before -<br />
from the beginning somehow my acting also aimed at forestalling an in my view<br />
unproductive social systems change-approach. The paradox became that I managed a<br />
programme which for me in its objectives was unadvisable but by being there I aimed<br />
at the possibilities to discuss co-creative ways of interacting in the UAS. Thus my<br />
ambivalence about the programme did not preclude me from becoming its manager.<br />
In the same line as my co-creativism never hindered generating attainable results.<br />
A colourless chamele<strong>on</strong>?<br />
Obviously I am perceived as versatile enough to manage this programme, despite my<br />
own hesitati<strong>on</strong>s or my ideological principles which are well known to my superiors. Or<br />
maybe I must see things the other way around because co-creativism is not egocentric<br />
according to its own definiti<strong>on</strong> and maybe therefore I was the perfect guy to do<br />
such a job. Well chosen by my superior: focussed <strong>on</strong> the process, committed to deliver,<br />
experienced enough to coordinate sensitive projects, not afraid to do new things and<br />
not competing <strong>on</strong> power.<br />
Given the characteristics of an advisory positi<strong>on</strong> (Block, 1996) I find myself in the role<br />
between an internal and external adviser. The odd jobs I do are more or less funda-<br />
4. Sense making in and of the internal branding project | 111