Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

In accidental meetings with Inez Reker, Cees Corte and Marc Claassen I put my findings
also forward, but Cees Corte and Marc Claassen still had to read the report. As
the programme manager I felt it my responsibility to initiate discussions, but I also
wanted to influence the discussion with regard to my remarks. Cees Corte reacted by
asking questions about technical and statistical details of the report, by asking for
attention for the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which was very positive. NPS is a metric
which measures loyalty between an organization and an employer of customer. Corte
more or less acknowledged that there were differences between employees and
managers in signifying the values. I understood Corte’s hesitations because my interpretation
implicated a criticism on his model.
In the second draft Inez Reker corrected a part of her findings: percentage, core values
but not her neutral categorizing. In the summary of the report she pulled a remarkable
conclusion: to her opinion the programme had not succeeded in its objective of internalization
of the core values by the employees. Furthermore she endorsed that there
were differences between managers and employees in the significance given to the
values.
On this second draft I reacted – again immediately - with a memo to the coordination
team. I put forward doubt about the usability of the used branding-model and pointed
to the early mentioned differences between employees and managers, the differences
in scores among schools, faculties and offices. I advised to be restraint regarding an
internalization approach as the next step. In this way I enervated Inez Reker’s remarks
about the failure of internalization of the values. Thereafter I kept the subject off the
agenda. Nobody noticed it or apparently thought otherwise. A not unexpected quick
reaction of Cees Corte on my memo followed: his model was appropriate. I reacted by
stating that I had not wanted to discuss the model, but wanted to emphasize that we
should see things in its context and not in terms of a model. A more elaborated reaction
of Cees Corte added that we should think about the next step in the programme
in which a conscious application of the core values throughout the university should
become the main issue. He asked again for attention for the NPS.
After the above mentioned ‘electronic’ discussions Inez Reker presented a final report.
In her summary amongst others she paid attention to the fact that the success of the
programme is restricted and should lead to reconsidering the way it is managed, she
maintained the neutral category, paid attention to NPS as having a very positive score
and specified the schools and faculties where the amount of criticasters of the core
values was high.
From the final report to the presentation for the board
Cees Corte was quick in sending a first draft of conclusions and recommendations
before the meeting of the coordination team. In general his conclusions corresponded
with the discussions before. In his reaction quite some critical remarks about management
and about overambitious policy were made. I doubted if we should or could
4. Sense making in and of the internal branding project | 91