Municipality of Tilburg
culture
expression
strategy
Aug 2024
Story: Tilburg
A city organization is at its best when it feels close. For the Municipality of Tilburg, that closeness is everything. Close to the people it serves. Close to the purpose that gives every decision meaning. Tilburg sensed the world around it getting louder and more complex, and chose to look inward. The challenge was not to write a slogan, but to shape a story every colleague could recognize as their own, from the front desk to the policy teams.
Tilburg
A city organisation is at its best when it feels close. For the Municipality of Tilburg, that closeness had started to slip. Not dramatically, just quietly: the internal culture and the external ambitions were no longer keeping time with each other. The brief wasn't to write a new slogan. It was to find a story every colleague, from the front desk to the policy teams, could recognise as their own without needing to translate it first.
Listening to the people who actually run the city
We didn't start with a positioning workshop for the board. We started with the people who keep the place moving on a Tuesday morning. Interactive sessions and co-creation across the organisation, so that the story would be built with everyone who would later have to live it.
Using 23plusone we tested which of the 24 fundamental human drivers were genuinely shared across the teams. Belonging, obviously. Care, obviously. And a quieter one that kept coming back: freedom. Not freedom as a political poster, but the very specific Tilburg version: the room to be yourself without having to explain yourself first. That turned out to be the load-bearing idea, and it sat right under the surface the whole time.
One of the team members we worked with put it neatly: "The collaboration with BR-ND People didn't feel like a traditional consultancy project, but like a shared search where we finally found the right words for what we had been feeling all along."
A story that opens with a breath
The result opens on one line: "Here I breathe freely." Short enough to remember, specific enough to Tilburg, generous enough to hold everyone from residents to civil servants. We translated it into a practical toolkit and a short film so it could land on the work floor rather than only in the brand book.
Teams now make choices with a shared sense of direction. The organisation grows alongside its residents, instead of drifting ahead of them or lagging behind them. A city story that actually helps the city behave like itself.
Want a brand story every colleague can recognise as their own?
If your organisation has drifted out of rhythm with its own core, there's a way to co-create a story with the people who have to live it, so it lands on the work floor and not just in the brand book. Let's talk about it.
Reach out to Kim or Alexander if you're looking for something similar