Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon
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4.3 Emerging themes of reflecti<strong>on</strong><br />
The writing of the narrative, the discussing of and the reflecting <strong>on</strong> the narrative in the<br />
learning group, and reading literature which appeared to be relevant, enabled me to<br />
discern several themes with regard to the micro-political efforts in the coordinati<strong>on</strong><br />
team.<br />
Looking back at the deliberati<strong>on</strong>s and the shifts I could say that we managed to reach<br />
satisfying results for ourselves and for the members of the board. The programme<br />
could be c<strong>on</strong>tinued. The members of the board were satisfied and identified with the<br />
c<strong>on</strong>clusi<strong>on</strong>s and recommendati<strong>on</strong>s. The members of the coordinati<strong>on</strong> team reached an<br />
agreement and work could be d<strong>on</strong>e.<br />
In my reflecti<strong>on</strong>s my musings <strong>on</strong> how things evolved in the internal programme play a<br />
role in the background. The development of this programme up till now shows that we<br />
never realized what we planned for the programme. Things always developed in<br />
another way than planned. I suppose that as members of the coordinati<strong>on</strong> team we<br />
share the experience that this happens all the time and that we learned to adapt to<br />
what really happened. In practice we designed plans for about a year, things developed<br />
in their own way and <strong>on</strong>ce in a while the team redesigned its plans according to the<br />
developments. Sometimes I w<strong>on</strong>der if the UAS is spending a lot of time (and m<strong>on</strong>ey)<br />
producing paper work with unknown results. Although the evaluati<strong>on</strong> showed that<br />
there is a high familiarity with the core values, for me it is unclear to what extent this<br />
can be explained by the efforts within the branding programme. I p<strong>on</strong>der sometimes<br />
realizing that to evaluate a programme suggests the importance of a programme, but<br />
in no way proves the causal impact of the programme <strong>on</strong> the evaluated results. Moreover,<br />
in this case the differences between the employees and managers with regard to<br />
the core values may even indicate that there is no causal relati<strong>on</strong> between the programme<br />
and the familiarity with the core values.<br />
A first major theme of reflecti<strong>on</strong> is my positi<strong>on</strong> as an adviser to the board. As described<br />
between the first draft of the report and the final c<strong>on</strong>clusi<strong>on</strong>s and recommendati<strong>on</strong>s a<br />
lot of work was d<strong>on</strong>e. A great deal of the work c<strong>on</strong>sisted of shifting meaning. The<br />
shifting was d<strong>on</strong>e by the members of the coordinati<strong>on</strong> team by (re)interpreting c<strong>on</strong>cepts,<br />
definiti<strong>on</strong>s and arguments, and (re)ordering the sequence of them with the<br />
purpose of producing a meaningful advice to the members of the board. I asked myself<br />
what is the impact of my job in this ‘producing a meaningful advice’ to the board? And<br />
how is this impact evolving out of the work I do? Generally speaking I assume that<br />
advising should have noticeable impact <strong>on</strong> policy, <strong>on</strong> the behaviour of those who are<br />
advised and <strong>on</strong> what happens next. However, the development of the branding programme<br />
and the results of the evaluati<strong>on</strong> evoke a critical reflecti<strong>on</strong> <strong>on</strong> the kind of<br />
work I do. What am I doing in my job as adviser?<br />
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