Scaling is not a strategy

You’d think doubling headcount, landing major R&D contracts,

and smashing technical milestones would make a business feel more in control.

But for one science-led tech firm we worked with,

success was starting to feel strangely chaotic.

They weren’t “failing” in the classic sense. Quite the opposite.

Their core technology was flying. They’d grown from a tight,

founding team to 50 people in just a few years.

Customers were knocking. Investors were circling.

The plan? Expand the offer: products and services.

Explore new markets. Shift from bespoke

R&D towards scalable, repeatable revenue.

Smart. Sensible. But inside the business, things were fraying.

People were unsure where they fit.

Ideas were flying around, but nothing seemed to land.

Strategy felt like something that happened in funding decks,

not day-to-day decisions.

And the leadership team were stuck in that classic

engineering-led catch-22: do we impose structure and risk

killing the autonomy that makes our team great…

or do we wing it and hope alignment magically emerges?

This is the moment for the Defankle Stack™

When companies start scaling, they often reach for familiar tools

(stage-gate processes, new roles, more meetings, "innovation pipelines").

The trouble is, most of these are just polished admin.

They impose order without building clarity.

We did something different.

We started by listening. Not to the loudest voices—but to the absences.

The feedback loops that had quietly shut down.

The talented individuals who felt confused, not empowered.

The ideas that had been asked for but never acknowledged.

The signals that, beneath the surface, the story was starting to unravel.

Here’s what we found:

The strategy was real, but hidden

The leadership team had clear intent.

They just hadn’t said it out loud, or often enough.

People weren’t resisting the vision—they just didn’t know what it was.

And without that anchor, they couldn’t tell whether their work aligned.

So, they disengaged.

The systems didn’t support the ambition

Ideas had nowhere to land.

Decisions were inconsistent.

Resourcing was ad hoc.

Innovation was still happening, but it was fragile;

dependent on individual heroics rather than solid structures.

The story wasn’t travelling

There was no shared language for change.

Communication was happening,

but not in a way that helped people connect dots,

see the bigger picture, or make confident decisions.

The culture was holding its breath

People wanted to contribute but weren’t sure if they still belonged.

The old ways of working were no longer sustainable,

but the new ways hadn’t been defined.

So, people hesitated.

Defankling the knot

We applied the Defankle Stack.

Our model for building innovation infrastructure that actually works.

1. Strategy
   We made the strategic ambition visible, tangible, and repeatable.

   We didn’t write a vision statement.

   We built a tool leaders could use to make trade-offs and explain choices.

   
   

2. Systems
   We co-designed a simple, flexible governance structure.

   Not red tape; just enough structure to support clarity and flow.

   People now know where to take ideas, how they’ll be evaluated, and what good looks like.

   
   

3. Story
   We worked on leadership language.

   Shifted from vague vision-talk to clear narrative about what’s changing and why.

   Leaders started repeating the same messages.

   So did their teams.

   
   

4. Culture
   We named the transition.

   Acknowledged the shift from early-stage chaos to deliberate growth.

   Invited people to be part of that shift.

   Psychological safety doesn’t just come from being nice;

   it comes from clarity, consistency, and trust in the process.

What happened next?

Alignment returned.

Not because we enforced it, but because we enabled it.

The team weren’t just “on board”. They were steering the ship.

The company is now rolling out a new services offer,

with innovation systems that match their ambition.

Strategy is no longer a slide. It’s a working tool.