Yes! Thanks for reminding me! Business drama – we wanted to discuss this topic a little more as well. I don’t want you to think that I alone or the tools that we make are capable of transforming your business processes and changing your culture. At the same time, however, I do believe that we can make an effective contribution. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been harping on about it for hours or working so hard to convince you. 

Nevertheless, we still need to remain aware that corporate culture is complex. It can’t always be managed with simple recipes. And even when we and our intranet partners are trying hard to analyze the situations that prevail in our clients’ companies and adapt the tools precisely, a great intranet on its own is not enough to bring about a fundamental change.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the path to greater transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness, as well as more collaboration, ultimately culminates at a destination called “Digital Transformation.” In fact, it’s true that all of these aspects are capable of significantly increasing your company profits. And that’s a great thing. This is what everyone in your company wants. Even for the works council, it’s great because then there’s more profit to distribute to the workforce. Unfortunately, though, it’s not as easy as that. 

To achieve a really successful intranet and digital transformation, you need cultural, organizational, and technical change. 

Up to this point in the book, we’ve mainly discussed technical changes. Most companies are in love with tools and software solutions because they’re readily available and easily implemented and measured. Cultural and organizational changes are often quite painful to go through. If your management team doesn’t trust its workforce, but would rather tie it down, monitor it constantly, and cultivate a culture of distrust, you’ll find it quite difficult to turn the corner with a modern intranet system and drive digital transformation forward. I’ve heard statements like this from some of my contacts at our clients’ companies: “The people at the top will have to change their attitudes before they ask us to create transparency, trust, and cooperation with an intranet.”

You know, of course, that this doesn’t help. The problem is that these top managers are probably the ones who ordered the planning and implementation of the project in the first place. 

Let’s exaggerate the situation a little but still keep it realistic by assuming that your project is being measured against goals and specific metrics. You need to show results that will make your project look good. Of course, we could start to complain about how difficult it is to conjure up measurable results for issues that concern communication, transparency, collaboration, and trust. But what if we turned this intangibility around and made it into a benefit? 

This is where our “business drama” enters stage right. Lars Vollmer originally came up with this term – and it fits hand in glove with some of the processes in place in companies around the world (see “Recommended Reading”). 

And sometimes a business drama needs to be played out in front of the curtain to the satisfaction of the leading players in order to successfully pull off the work that adds value to the drama behind the scenes.

Now our question is as follows: how do you play out an intranet project in a traditionally run organization in order to demonstrate success as early and as often as possible? 

The benefit to us in this respect is that most outsiders are unfamiliar with the software we use. Either way, it goes without saying that your roadmap needs to include things that sound good and are easy to implement using the intranet software you’ve selected. 

But here are a few words of advance warning: if you work in an environment where business clownery and drama meet with success, don't hold out a lot of hope that an intranet project will help you overcome the fundamental beliefs entrenched in your organization. If this does prove possible, however, you should be delighted! In this case, make sure you base your roadmap to success entirely on the culture that currently prevails. Make sure you play out the same drama in your intranet as well! That doesn’t mean that you should simply lose faith in the potential of your intranet or do a bad job of it. You simply act out a play in front of the curtain. And behind the curtain, you can calmly and carefully carry on with your work in a spirit that adds value to the company.

Link to this page: https://seibert.biz/intranetbookbusinessdrama