Inside Inventium's hardest year: leadership lessons from inside the team

Executive overview

A small consultancy introduced hierarchy to manage growth, accidentally fragmenting a high-performing team into siloed individuals. Trust eroded, key people left, and burnout spread — while the leader self-censored out of fear and the team fell into triangulation.

Recovery came not from a single intervention but from small, consistent moments of vulnerability: a wellbeing debrief, consistent check-ins during grief, and an ugly-cry phone call that finally broke the distance.

Good intentions and structural decisions can quietly destroy team cohesion when they optimise for individual performance over collective trust.

How hierarchy fractured the team

• Adding management layers at the start of 2024 divided a 10–12 person team into disconnected streams
• Staff worked towards separate goals with no meaningful overlap — high performers, not a cohesive team
• The super chickens effect: individually productive but collectively destructive
• A key confidant leaving exposed how siloed relationships had become
• Task-dumping via project management tools replaced real collaboration

Leadership failures that compounded the damage

• Introducing hierarchy gave some staff a sense of progression but produced resentment, not alignment
• A mid-year leadership change brought assumptions from other organisations that clashed with Inventium's DNA
• Meeting culture shifted away from the very practices Inventium teaches clients — a credibility blow
• The CEO self-censored heavily, fearing cancellation, which stripped the team of authentic leadership
• Triangulation became the default: critical feedback routed via confidants instead of direct conversation

What pushed people to the edge

• Prolonged uncertainty triggered sustained fight-or-flight across the whole team
• At least one team member quietly searched for new jobs, prioritising pay for the first time — a values signal
• Retrenchments deepened grief and isolation for those who remained
• A pre-Christmas work dump — while a colleague attended a client party — marked the team's lowest point

The moments that rebuilt trust

• A GLWS (Global Leadership Wellbeing Survey) debrief created the first real vulnerability between leader and team member
• During retrenchment grief, consistent low-pressure check-ins — without forcing conversation — built safety
• Asking "do you need me to listen, or to help you find a path forward?" instead of arriving with prepared answers
• The ugly-cry phone call: reaching out despite the leader being on leave, and receiving immediate help, cemented the relationship
• Trust was built through accumulation — no single gesture, but many small consistent moments