The Trait Catalogue is HEPO's software for defining the characteristics of work your organization wants to understand and develop. People & Culture teams use it with colleagues and implementation partners to name traits, describe observable practices, and connect those definitions to relevant evidence.

Its output is a versioned vocabulary that the Evaluation Engine can use. Supplied definitions give you a starting point; your organization reviews, adapts, and extends them.

Turn a value into something you can examine

Suppose a team wants more reliable handoffs. “Improve collaboration” expresses an intention, but it leaves several questions open. Does the team mean completing the agreed work, communicating a delay early, or giving the next colleague enough context to continue?

The catalogue helps make that meaning explicit. For a follow-through definition, the team can identify commitment completion and deadline conformance as observable features, with work entries and deadline-linked calendar events as relevant sources. The people doing the work help establish what those records can reasonably show.

The result gives evaluation a defined subject. An overdue item can contribute evidence about a handoff; it does not explain the cause of the delay or establish a person's character by itself.

What a trait definition contains

For example, the supplied Dignity definition includes clarity, reliability, composure, respect, and self-containment as feature units. These connect the larger idea to questions about communication, commitments, escalation, professional regard, and scope discipline. Their interpretation still needs the context of your work.

Version history records changes to definitions. Keeping that history matters when reviewing an earlier reading: people need to understand the definition and evidence context used at the time, rather than silently applying today's meaning to yesterday's record.

A supplied vocabulary you can make your own

The starting culture catalogue contains ten core traits. Their roles and motifs come from HEPO's methodological work:

The motifs help explain the method; the descriptions, features, and evidence connections make the definitions usable in software. The vocabulary is a starting framework, not a requirement that every organization assign identical meaning or priority to each trait.

The shared definition system also accommodates business and process measures, such as work cycle time, rework, blocked duration, event attendance, and meeting cost. Those are evidence subjects within the platform, not additional commercial offerings.

Describe what undermines the practice too

An anti-trait describes a pattern that erodes the practice a trait represents. The supplied catalogue includes thirty anti-traits, organized in three forms for each core trait:

• Primary: a direct inversion, such as neglect of responsibilities or disregard for contributions.
• Mimetic: an appearance of the virtue without its substance, such as formal politeness that avoids actual follow-through.
• Structural: a condition sustained by the working system, such as necessary support work remaining outside recognition and planning.

These definitions make it possible to examine both the desired practice and its erosion along a polarity. Configured descriptors address matters such as persistence, spread, detectability, and escalation. They provide a framework for interpretation; they are not measured universal constants about human behavior.

Keep human-assigned attributes distinguishable

People attributes provide a separate kind of context. The starting set includes fifteen attributes across agency orientation, handling uncertainty, effort and reward, social orientation, and time orientation. Examples include initiative locus, ambiguity tolerance, recognition sensitivity, collaboration preference, and planning horizon.

These are human-assigned descriptions, distinct from evidence-based trait evaluation. Neither end of an orientation is inherently better. A colleague's preference for independent work, for example, should not silently become a negative collaboration score.

Establish the first definitions together

Your people supply the meaning and working context. Consultants help translate that meaning into observable definitions, including counter-patterns and useful limits. Implementers connect the agreed features to available evidence. The delivery partner coordinates this work and later revisions with the organization.

Start with a characteristic relevant to a real decision, and establish what would count as evidence for and against it. That gives the next module something specific to evaluate.

Next: the Evaluation Engine → · The method behind the definitions → · People & Culture overview →

Bring us one working practice you want to define more clearly.