Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

the importance which in the prescriptive and descriptive rhetoric is attached to a
stable (read: normal) state of things. The consequence of this point of departure is that
a dualism is introduced as if an organization or a person (e.g. an adviser) is able to step
out of a normal situation, is able to organize some sort of learning process and then is
able to step back into the altered state. From a complex responsive process-perspective
this is - as mentioned before - called the doubling fallacy (Stacey, 2007). The
fallacy implies to assume that change is disconnected from everyday organizational or
personal life, although at the end of the day change may indeed have some consequences
for this everyday life.
I assume that anyone who has been part of an organization and change programmes
knows that this dualism is an illusion. My experience - as stipulated in chapter 3 - with
working in teams to design reform together, exemplifies that even if ‘stepped out-situations’
are created, the same ideological battles are fought, but then hidden in designoriented
language. If an organization is to be described as unstructured and ever
changing, things are and remain unclear (Homan, 2005). Change programmes are part
of an on-going process of sense making by people within their organizational context.
Change mixes conversation, routines, spontaneity, cooperation, conflict and power
(Groot, 2010b). From a complex responsive process-perspective change, whether
emergent, incremental or disruptive, is our normal state of being, but slides into
invisibility in what is called the dominant modernistic discourse (Chia, 1995; Toulmin,
1990) as propagated by descriptive or descriptive theories of change.
In an ever changing social reality which is brought about in the on-going interactions
of people, one may wonder whether effective change in the way it is proclaimed by
theories of change, ever will be present.
If change is real in its continuity, my supposed role of a corporate jester and the doubts
about the manageability of an organization make it obvious to reflect upon my role as
a jester from a point of view in which manageability and the belief in planning of
effective change is being questioned.
The return of the jester?
If it is true that nowadays there is again a growing amount of corporate jesters (Otto,
2001) then my position, as I became to reflect upon my position in my narrative about
the internal branding programme, is to be explored in regard to this growing presence
of jesters. Apparently, nowadays corporations again need some sort of an adviser to
challenge them or to think outside the box, but why a jester? “The Corporate Fool is a
manifesto for a new business professional: an indispensable amalgam of roles which
stimulates effective change and resolution in this foolish world.” (Firth and Leigh, 1998:
43). What may a jester’s role be in a foolish world by abstaining from the possibility of
planned effective change will be taken up again after some reflections on the process
of drafting the performance agreements.
5. Drafting performance agreements: gestures of a contemporary jester | 131