ACTUALIZE IS … A HONEYBEE?
HONEYBEES CAN TELL YOU A LOT ABOUT BRAND IDENTITY
OUR SILLY-BUT-NOT-SILLY EXPERIMENT IN COMPANY IDENTITY
THERE ARE AS MANY WAYS TO UNDERSTAND A COMPANY’S CULTURE AS THERE ARE COMPANIES.
Some are more fun than others.
We recently experimented on ourselves using an exercise that we would also offer to clients looking to build a better brand identity. See, it turns out that asking your staff to “describe our brand identity” usually doesn’t get very good answers — but there are better ways.
Q: IF ACTUALIZE WERE AN ANIMAL, WHICH ONE WOULD WE BE, AND WHY?
DO WE WANT TO BE A HONEYBEE?
These answers are both amusing and telling. They show us some patterns that we can sum up in more businesslike bullet points.
Today, we’re a little more certain that Actualize is:
• Loyal, dedicated
• Unfussy, straightforward
• Driven by collaboration, group-oriented
• Small, nimble
• Powerful when we need to be
Fortunately, these are the things we aspire to be — they show us an alignment between goals and reality. There’s always room for growth, of course, and the next step is to define what it needs to look like.
You can easily run this exercise with your team — and walk away with tangible, actionable data.
Bzzz.