Collation

To collate is to collect and compare information in order to arrange and integrate it. 

In the case of company culture, that information is usually qualitative – views, beliefs, opinions, ideas. However, it often also incorporates quantitative measurement.

What collation looks like

Interviews, workshops, collaboration sessions

We facilitate a series or combination of these to gather important qualitative information that gets to the heart of who you are. Ideally this is a process that includes:

• Conversation: open, honest discussion around who, why, how, what and where the company is, and wants to be.

• Co-creation: expression and consideration of opinions and ideas around the company’s culture.

• Clarification: we try to get support for, if not agreement and consensus on, the direction of the culture, and design a roadmap toward it.

Measurement and assessment

This informs the qualitative part of the process and could include measurement or assessment of:

• What motivates your people

• How they currently experience the company’s culture

• What culture the company needs to reach its potential

• The alignment of all of these

“Create a culture you love, because one will eventually emerge no matter what.”

— Dharmesh Shah, co-founder and CTO, Hubspot 

Codification

To codify is to arrange and assemble information into a formal system. 

Codification does something essential: it articulates your culture, making explicit who you are.

While many codes contain numbers or symbols, a culture code puts your purpose, principles and practices into a concrete form. It also means you get something very tangible out of working with Conscious Company.

What codification looks like

Storytelling and artefacts

We articulate beautifully and emotively who your company is: what matters to it, what it believes, what it aspires to and how it does things. These stories and artefacts are primarily intended for your people but often find an audience outside of your organisation, attracting great colleagues and loyal customers. They may take the form of:

• Purpose, values or mission statements

• Manifestoes

• Employee handbooks and culture decks

Communication

To communicate is to show and tell; to actively convey information. 

There is no such thing as over-communication when it comes to culture. Many companies feel good about codifying their beliefs and values, only for that work to gather dust somewhere because it’s not shared effectively (or at all). The hard work really starts with communication, infusing culture into your business and the way you do business, so that it’s something everyone at work “gets” and lives by.

Of course, you communicate explicitly – by what you say – and implicitly – by what you do.

What communication looks like

Written and verbal storytelling

These are the more explicit forms of communication. We help you to plan a strategy and execute tactics to communicate your culture effectively and with longevity throughout the business. Examples include:

• Rollouts and roadshows

• Rituals and events

• Team workshops

• Emails, newsletters and internal campaigns

Practices and behaviours

What an organisation says means nothing if it isn’t mirrored in what that organisation does. A company’s practices and behaviours are the implicit reflection of what it truly believes. It’s how a company really walks the talk. We work with you to help turn your values into actions, expressed in such things as how you:

• Attract, develop and reward people

• Review work and performance

• Make decisions, big and small

• Encourage behaviours that align with beliefs

Marketing

Marketing professor Raj Sisodia has written that marketing has lost its way, costing more but delivering less. Conscious companies, on the other hand, spend less on it but have happier customers for longer. They do not see marketing as separate from culture, but as an extension of it. As customers buy more into who and how companies are, gimmicky and manipulative marketing may come to be replaced by storytelling that artfully and honesty tells people not only about what you sell, but what you stand for. This is the mindset we believe should inform:

• Marketing strategy

• Content

• Creative work