Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

the programme. Analyses of our websites and other communication media, and
intensive discussions clarified what our core values proved to be.
During the years 2009 – 2011 the programme aimed at enhancing awareness and
conscious application of the core values. Eye-catching actions were organized to get
attention for the core values. Support was organized for teams who wanted to start
working with the core values. A redesign of our brand-architecture was realized.
Evaluation report of the programme
On the 12th September 2011 Inez Reker (our institutional researcher) send the coordination
team of the programme a first, incomplete report concerning an internal
evaluation about the state of affairs of the internal branding programme of the UAS.
On the 7th October 2011 Reker presented her final report to the coordination team,
accompanied with a management summary and her conclusions (Reker, 2011).
Her evaluation was focussed on the question how our employees experience the
presence of the core values (initially: brand values) of the UAS. The core values are:
ambitious, professionalism, enterprising, open and inspiring. These values are seen as
the hard core of our organizational identity, supposing to give a distinctive quality to
our members of staff and students.
The core values were made explicit and organization-wide introduced in 2009.The
decision to evaluate the branding programme was taken in March 2011. The evaluation
served different interests. The contracted company advocated evaluations to be able
to prove the results of their efforts. The members of the board supported an evaluation
to legitimize granting follow up budgets for the programme. The report was
presented to the executive board of the UAS (15th November 2011), accompanied with
conclusions and recommendations of the coordination team. The 21st December the
report was circulated in the UAS to the deans, associate professors and directors.
The coordination team consisted of Marc Claassen, the director marketing and communication,
Henk Rademakers, the director human resources, Cees Corte, a partner of
the contracted commercial company and me as the responsible programme manager.
The coordination team reported to the executive board.
Deliberations within the coordination team, which were needed to draw conclusions
and to give recommendations regarding the evaluation report, took place in formal
meetings (face to face in an arranged setting), e-mail and informal conversations
(accidental face to face and by telephone). Being the programme manager I was
responsible for encouraging and organizing these deliberations.
This chapter contains the narrative of what happened during the deliberations in the
coordination team, followed by a description of the shifts in interpretation which
evolved during the deliberations. I assume that readers are familiar enough with
4. Sense making in and of the internal branding project | 89