Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

ger always kept a bit of an ambivalent attitude with regard to the appreciation and
effectiveness of a manager and as someone who with regard to an organizational
philosophy is inspired by ideas about co-creativity and wisdom of the crowd. Therefore
from my perspective the engagement of employees with their organization is important
with regard to the chances on success of changes within organizations. In former
projects in which I had the lead I tried to arrange engagement and also now engagement
is an evident point of departure for me. From my perspective in the UAS I notice
a constant wavering between a top down and bottom up approach with regard to
policymaking.
The research into what happens in situations and what is produced in policymaking is
the subject of the next three chapters of which the narratives are the point of departure.
In the narratives, the analyses and the reflections it becomes apparent in which
way my taken for granted assumptions play their role in what happens. Already that is
an element of unpredictability that clarifies that policymaking is no rational and
planned act.
Making sense of an internal branding project
To innovate the marketing policy a project was started with the point of departure
that the marketing of an organization only makes sense if internally is lived up what is
promised in the outside world. Therefore the first objective of the project became to
articulate the actual present brand values, to be followed by trying to raise awareness
of the employees of what connected everybody (process of internal branding). The
raised awareness would help to reinforce the identity of the UAS and amongst others
help to secure and to reinforce the market position.
In the narrative (chapter 4) I recount how within a period of 10 weeks the coordination
team of the project drew up conclusions and recommendations for the Executive
Board. These conclusions and recommendations concerned an evaluation of the
effectiveness of the project, after two years after the start of the project. To what
degree the brand values were recognized and shared? And were they experienced as
steering? These were the basic questions for the evaluation.
In the narrative becomes apparent how in the ongoing interactions among the members
of the coordination team an amount of interpretations about the evaluation were
construed. In due course the interpretations which were attributed to the evaluation
shifted with regard to content and implication. An eye catching shift was for instance
that the members of the team started to talk about core values instead of brand
values. A shift which in principle substantially increased the normative impact of the
project.
Although the different members of the coordination team had different opinions and
different interests, after 10 weeks there was a shared set of conclusions and recommendations.
Moreover, the consensus had evolved in rather great harmony. Because
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