Being innovative vs building innovation capability

(and why the difference matters)

Engineering firms are often told they need to

“be more innovative.”

As if innovation is a personality trait.

Like being confident.

Or tidy.

Most engineering businesses are already innovative

(in the technical sense).

They’re solving hard problems,

producing clever products,

and adapting to customer needs every day.

What they often don’t have is innovation capability.

The difference between a team that can come up

with a clever workaround,

and a business that can consistently turn ideas into growth,

change, and commercial advantage.

Confusion between the two.

That’s what keeps innovation stuck.

What being innovative gets you

If you're lucky, a quick win.

A better design.

A great piece of problem-solving.

It’s valuable. But it’s reactive.

And it often stays inside a project, a team, or someone’s head.

Being innovative, on its own, doesn’t scale.

It doesn’t spread.

It doesn’t shift how the business behaves or what it’s capable of.

That takes something else.

What innovation capability builds

Innovation capability is structural. It’s strategic.

It means you’ve built the habits, systems,

and decision-making that allow innovation to change the business,

not just tweak the output.

It’s not magic. It’s intentionally designed infrastructure, unique to you.

And it’s the reason two businesses can have equally talented teams,

but only one is consistently growing, adapting,

and competing in ways the other isn’t.

Spot the difference

Here’s how you know you’re stuck in “being innovative”

without capability to match:

·       ideas come up, but go nowhere

·       big bets get made, then quietly dropped

·       innovation effort is sporadic, not sustained

·       strategy is vague and full of buzzwords

·       delivery always falls back to BAU

Sound familiar?

You’re not alone.

This is what happens when innovation is treated

like a zingy personality trait,

instead of what it really is: a business system.

What capability actually looks like

When you’ve built innovation capability,

you’ll see it in four places.

We call this the Defankle stack:

Strategy Clear decisions about what innovation

is for and how it links to growth

Systems Practical processes, decision points

and rhythms that make things move

Story Shared language that connects

the dots and brings the change to life

Culture Behaviours that support experimentation,

inclusion and momentum

That’s what turns “we should be more innovative”

into real capability.

That’s what gives people direction, not just permission.

Why this matters

Because the world doesn’t need more clever products.

It needs more businesses who can adapt,

align and move forward without waiting for the next crisis.

If you’ve already got technically brilliant people,

you don’t need to be more innovative.

You need to build the capability that lets your

brilliance become business advantage.

That’s the work. That’s the stack.

And that’s what we do.

We do it quickly, with integrity.

Without faff or fanfare. Incisive, culturally sensitive

and outcome focused, in 90 days we can help you make it stick.

Give me a shout if you’d like to know more.

#innovationcapability #engineeringstrategy #defanklelogic