Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

mental with generic implications and done in a relatively open setting. No specified
contract about time spent, expected results or cooperation is put on me. When I got
my position in 2008 my superior also asked me to be a critical friend and to state
whatever was on my mind regarding his policy. Within limits I am allowed or expected
to take a relatively independent view on subjects.
In my position and given my assignments versatility is needed. I must be able to deal
flexibly with different subjects in regard to different stakeholders. This versatility
extends not only to different content and communicative competences, but also
towards my convictions. The more I would be an ideological fundamentalist, the more
I would be unable to manage the projects I manage.
If I would be a protean or chameleonic adviser then it would be impossible to be a
critical friend because critical friends do have opinions and do have convictions. Moreover,
as I wrote about my taken for granted assumptions: I am allergic for unfounded
authority, arguments or convictions. Protean would imply that I act as a chameleon
whose colour uncritically adapts to its environment.
The joker
Not being a chameleon but being more or less an anti-authoritarian co-creativist I
assume that it is worthwhile to examine if I hold a position of an organizational joker
or fool. The fool is the one in the organization who has his role in limiting the overestimating
and putting into perspective of one’s powers, more specific the power of the
people within the network I am working in (Kets de Vries, 1993). In a more practical
sense my efforts lay somewhere between being reflective and critical about the
busyness and glamour of our ambitions (Raad, 2008) or to see things differently (Firth
and Leigh, 1998). When I told three colleagues - whose careers cross mine in a variable
intensity – apart from each other that in my research being a joker emerged as a
subject of reflection, they immediately backed it up. They recognized me as someone
who is always busy in connecting people and subjects, who fiddles with people’s
interpretations of reality, who often has a (slightly) deviating perspective on subjects,
who often seeks new challenges and who always seeks the space between the lines.
‘Elusive’ as a former superior would call it. Interesting to know is where throughout
my career I fulfilled the role of the alienator, confidante, contrarian, truth seeker and
mythologist (Firth and Leigh, 1998).
Narrating about the identity-programme I managed, reflexive efforts in and with my
learning group and reading about advisory work and the potential presence of an
organizational fool a new perspective on my role evolved. In the UAS most projects
are started with quite loose definitions and purposes. This identity-programme started
in the same way. The people involved – including me of course - in designing and
coordinating the identity programme incorporated the methodology of the contracted
commercial company, started to discuss with many people our brand-, later core-values,
started to redesign our brand-architecture and organized if needed support for
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