Beneath the waterline of a growth company: the Iceberg model in Athmos practice.

A fast-growing SME with 65 employees has scaled rapidly in three years. The founder, seeking more structure, appoints several middle managers. Despite good intentions, unrest spreads on the shop floor, sales decline, and engagement drops. Employees complain about “too many meetings” and “not enough real communication.”

EVENTS

SYMPTOMS
  • Experienced employees resign unexpectedly
  • New team leaders face passivity or resistance
  • Meetings remain superficial; problems are not addressed

Typical reflex: individual evaluations, bonus programs, coaching, or team reorganizations.

What Athmos does:

With Athmos Pulse, we don’t treat these signals as isolated incidents but as symptoms of a deeper pattern. Staff turnover is not a “stand-alone event” but an invitation to explore what remains unspoken.

PATTERNS

Exposing the dynamics
  • New initiatives repeatedly trigger reluctance and hesitation
  • People prefer to wait rather than take initiative
  • Previous changes lacked communication and ignored employee input

What Athmos does:

With Athmos Atlas, we map recurring tensions. Via AI generated dialogues and AI-analyzed patterns (e.g. “We’re not involved,” “This is imposed from the top”), we provide a clear overview of where the friction lies and where flow exists.

STRUCTURES

Unpacking the system logic
  • The founder remains omnipresent, keeping decision-making space low
  • Middle managers carry responsibility without mandate
  • KPIs focus on output, not collaboration or engagement

What Athmos does:

We expose the system logic: who decides, who influences, who holds back. Through Athmos Atlas, we help re-examine KPIs and make systemic tensions discussable: leadership versus autonomy, trust versus control.

MENTAL MODELS

The underlying worldview
  • “Staying silent is safer than speaking up.”
  • “Taking initiative is not appreciated anyway.”
  • “Nobody really listens - they just want execution.”

What Athmos does:

Athmos Compass makes hidden stories visible and translates them into a shared compass that provides direction, deepens collaboration, and strengthens decision-making.

For growth companies, this means:

  • Less silo behavior, more focus and cohesion across teams
  • Faster and more consistent decision-making
  • Leaders equipped with a credible compass for direction
  • Employees experiencing ownership and psychological safety
  • Energy no longer lost in underlying tensions

The result: growth with clarity, decisiveness, and trust.

Tier
What's going on?
What does Athmos do?
What's changing?
Events

Silo behavior, hostility, stagnation, turnover

Identifying undercurrents with narrative precision

Recognition of tensions without blame

Pattern

Recurring conflict avoidance, cynicism, loyalty to the past

Narrative pattern analysis and cultural diagnostics via AI + dialogue

Insight into group dynamics and informal power structures

Structure

Unequal decision-making, asymmetric integration, lack of compass

Redesigning structures, KPIs, and responsibilities

A unified whole built on new common ground

Mental models

Beliefs of exclusion, loss, distrust, self-protection

Collective narrative work, leadership reflection, dialogue sessions

A shared new story guiding strategy and collaboration

Tier
What's going on?
What does Athmos do?
What's changing?
Events

Resignations, passivity, frustration

Bundling signals, recognizing friction

Recognition without blame

Patterns

Recurring resistance

Objectifying patterns via semantic data

Shared language for what is alive

Structures

Unequal responsibility

System diagnosis and KPI revision

Better alignment between roles and mandate

Mental models

“My opinion doesn't count”

Narrative work and leadership coaching

Increased ownership and psychological safety

Tier
What plays out?
What Athmos does
What changes?
Events

Frustration over pace, role confusion, threatened withdrawal, fragmented communication

Bundling and clarifying relational signals

Recognition of tension as structural, not personal

Pattern

Repeated conflict avoidance, parallel logics, personal agendas

Pattern analysis of rhythm, language, and power

New language for collaboration, grounded in reality

Structure

No shared mandate, unclear roles, conflicting KPIs

System diagnosis and framework redesign

Rules that carry tensions instead of suppressing them

Mental models

Ideological clashes, distrust between expertise areas, conflicting worldviews

Cultural dialogues and narrative re-framing

Shared story where differences are named, acknowledged, and strategically connected

Conclusion

Why this matters for growth companies

Many growth companies are built on entrepreneurship, trust, and direct communication. But once scale kicks in or change hits, the dynamic shifts:

  • Structures thicken.
  • Frictions surface.
  • When people lack footing, they pull back.

Athmos ensures growth doesn’t come at the expense of connection, engagement, or a healthy work climate. We give precise language to what lies beneath the surface, so strategy retains genuine buy-in and leadership grows stronger - not heavier.