Have you wondered why your intranet adoption plans are failing? Among the myriad of critical success factors to be covered, have you thought about sources of energy?
External energy is all the ra ra and marketing to get the intranet evangelised. It’s always necessary to get the ball rolling – the posters, the badges, the communications, the prizes, the flag flyers etc. But what happens 2 years later, (if you’re lucky it’s that long before it starts failing)?
In order for something to stick, it has to be converted to internal energy. In other words, it has to be self-sustaining by the people using it.
How does that happen? Basically it’s the “what’s in it for me” mode. Every person needs to take guiding principles from their company and make it their own. They need to personalise them and find a way to integrate them into their working world. They will need help on how to do this and commit to doing this.
However it’s also up to every one of us to look inside and see if we are part of the problem or truly contributing to a solution that will ultimately make the whole company more successful, and by proxy, make us more successful.
“Commitment remains an abstraction until we take the action. We demonstrate our commitment by finding it, living it and coaching it”.
And if you think about it, surely this can be applied to all of life? Take books – we can read endless motivational self-help books, but unless you take at least one of the principles and apply it, commit to it, and share it; will you really have changed anything?
Views from Veronique 