The collaborative spirit is quite personal to me because it has changed my life. In 2013, the merger of three companies marked the birth of Civitta as we know it today. At that time, we were a fraction of our current size. The journey that followed was a testament to the power of collaboration. We found a way to work together, sharing a common mission and values. Although the name Collaboratory is new, it has been integral to our DNA since the first steps together.
Collaboration is not just a way we organise our lives inside Civitta. It’s a feeling, a responsibility we take for our actions. The ‘laboratory’ aspect of our culture allows us to test our methods, take risks, and innovate. When we combine these elements into the Collaboratory, we create a powerful tool that helps us solve our clients’ most complex problems.
For that culture to thrive in the organisation, we need ambition, impact, and trust.
Ambition helped us, the founders of Civitta, create something unique. In the Baltics, companies and governments did not get high-quality support from the consulting sector because there were almost no proper consulting companies with international expertise, and talented people dreaming of working on international projects had to leave the region to follow their dreams. Therefore, we decided to do something no one else had done before in our region—we started to build a company with international know-how that could offer international experience to people living in our home societies.
For the Collaboratory to work and attract talent who share your vision and want to contribute, the company needs to be able to make an impact. And we can do it. We can take Ukraine as an example, where our team is working side by side with the government and president or projects where we work with major alternative fuel producers in Europe or our new location, Uzbekistan, where we are starting to build a local e-health system or example of our people from Estonia and Ukraine who together with external partners founded NGO United Delivery Mission and have already sent more than 230 cars to Ukraine. The Collaboratory enabled us to do all this- something good, meaningful, and impactful.
Finally, while mission, ambition, and impact are crucial, they are not enough without trust among colleagues. Trust is the bedrock of the Collaboratory. It’s about believing in each other’s abilities and feeling safe to make mistakes, knowing that we learn from them and improve. This is the way to create a bigger impact.
The Collaboratory gives us directions. Civitta wouldn’t be where it is without it. The Collaboratory is the reason for our success.