Overcoming Challenges in the In-House Rollout of the 10X Innovation Culture Program [Part 1]

Hello, this is HOKA from the HR Group, Organizational Human Resources Team.

Today, I’d like to share what happened following the 10X Innovation Culture Program in March 2024.

Introduction

KINTO Technologies (KTC from now on) is challenging itself to create an organizational environment that fosters innovation. We are still in the process of trial and error, but I would be happy if this article were read by those considering the introduction of the 10X Innovation Culture Program or those who want to create an organization that fosters innovation.

July: We Tried Implementing The 10X Innovation Culture Program Ourselves

I made a resolution even before joining the 10X Innovation Culture Program at the Google offices in March. I decided to implement the 10X Innovation Culture Program within our company. It was in March 2024 when we made the following decision: We will rollout the program every three months and review the assessment results. From the second round onward, we will commit to run the 10X Innovation Culture Program independently.

Awacchi and myself began preparing to run the program in the summer. The first step was to select facilitators. Since there would be no Google staff to support us this time, we needed to take on the role of facilitators in-house. When I reached out on Slack, four members stepped forward to volunteer.

The 10X Innovation Culture Program broadly consisted of the three main components listed below. We asked ourselves: "What would I do if I were a participant?" and "Which approach would be best for KTC?"

[1] A "pre-meeting" to watch a video and understand what the 10X Innovation Culture Program (from now on, the "10X") is
[2] Understanding our current status from assessment results
[3] Discussing the elements of 10X as the theme

These were the only things we had to do.

And yet, it was so difficult!!

Key Challenges:

• [Time Allocation] We were unsure whether the program should take 2 hours or 3.
• [Content] There were two groups of participants: first-time attendees and those joining for a second time. How should we move forward?
• [Quality] The section defining what 10X is important, but when KTC members presented, it came across as if they were simply reading from a script.

So, it was a trial-and-error process, starting from the very basics. Together with Awacchi and the four facilitators, despite our uncertainties, we managed to create the next program, discussing how things should unfold based on the March program.

Reviewing Each Content

[1] A pre-meeting to watch a video and understand what 10X is.

As with the previous program, we held a pre-meeting via Zoom. A facilitator introduced the concept of 10X, followed by a recorded playback of the 10X content. Lastly, we conducted an assessment questionnaire.

• It seemed that this time, the enthusiasm wasn't as high as it had been in March.
• Perhaps we were lacking motivation, particularly in terms of why KTC was learning this. That was the impression of the organizing team.

[2] Understanding our current status from the assessment results

We held our in-house 10X Innovation Culture Program at the Muromachi office on July 2, 2024. A total of 39 people participated, including those who came from the Osaka Tech Lab (our Osaka office) and Nagoya. There were both first-time and second-time participants.

We looked at the results of the assessment questionnaire that everyone had completed and reported whether each numerical value had gone up or down since the previous session, but the response seemed lukewarm.

• Maybe the participants did not feel attached to the reported numerical values because they haven't done anything special between the last program (March) and this one (July).
• Simply receiving the assessment results may not be sufficient for participants to determine whether the outcomes were good or bad.

That was the hypothesis of the organizing team.

[3] Discussing the elements of 10X as the theme

Next, we discussed how to review the past three months.

Some participants didn’t remember anything at all. Some first-time participants said, “Since I only watched the video, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” When the program was held at the Google offices the previous time, the discussions went smoothly, so this situation was unexpected for the organizing team (though looking back it seems obvious.)

Afterward, we discussed Autonomy, one of the key elements of 10X. As in the previous time, participants were divided into groups to write down issues and discuss potential solutions, but this time we had the below discoveries:

• Some of them haven't been actively practicing 10X over the past three months.
• For some reason, the atmosphere this time seemed less conducive to active discussions compared to the previous session.

Post-Feedback Survey

Compared to last time, the number of items with ratings 3 and 2 increased, and there were also some items rated as 1.

The motivation to promote this activities also decreased.

In the questionnaire comments, we received the following advice from participants:

1. Overall impression:

• Thank you to the organizing team for all your hard work. It was a fun event.
• No particular comments for the moment.
• I would love to see this implemented in other teams as well. It’s a great activity, even just for learning about other people's perspectives.

2. We also saw feedback about the previous session held:

• I would have appreciated a brief recap of the content from the previous program. There were moments when those who missed the previous program felt left behind.
• It took me some time to refresh my memory on the issues from the previous program, so I wish there had been time for a review beforehand.
• I felt that the discussions were more lively last time. This time, no one was proactively steering the conversation (a lack of initiative), and there was no advance preparation, so it took some time to get into the groove.

3. On time and schedule

• It was short in terms of time. It might have been better if we had more time for group work and discussions.
• The time schedule was too tight (since things don't always go as planned, there should have been some leeway in the program. It’s too risky to plan by the minute).
• Maybe the problem was time allocation (I think that was the goal, but overall, it didn’t seem like we were clear on the next action.)

4. On group discussions

• When forming teams for group discussions, I thought it might have been better to select members from teams that actually work together, rather than mixing people from different teams.
• It was stimulating and refreshing to discuss with members from different teams, like in the previous program and this one. However, I also feel that it is difficult to achieve results that are directly applicable to our work. So, I thought it might be a good idea to have a conversation about 10X again among members from the same team.

5. On facilitation and management of the workshop

• There was too little time for ice-breaker activities, including self-introductions. When starting a workshop, it is very important to ease the atmosphere among unfamiliar members. We didn’t even have the time to finish self-introductions.
• The questions in the workshop were too abstract, making it difficult for participants to come up with concrete answers.
• Maybe the organizing team overlooked setting goals for the workshop.
• It would have been better to set a goal at the beginning, such as telling the participants, "please take this back with you."

6. On content understanding and follow-up

• It was my first time participating, so I felt that the contents seemed more suited for those who had prior knowledge, and overall, it gave an impression of being somewhat vague.
• It might have been better to either narrow down the content for a more compact format, or extend the duration to provide more thorough explanations.

7. Others

• I don’t understand the purpose of the paper (for writing responses) that was distributed.
• It would have been better to assign a leader to each working team from the start.

8. Proactivity and discussions within teams

• Looking back after the previous session, there were few actions taken, so I would like to allocate time for regular discussions within the team.
• I am interested in Intrinsic Motivation (another of the 10x key concepts). I believe that combining it with Autonomy can create an even greater sense of speed.

After the 10X Innovation Culture Program the facilitator members gathered to conduct a retrospective session. A lot of ideas were gathered.

Now, where should we start?

Meanwhile, I was given the opportunity by Google to speak at Google Cloud Next Tokyo'24.

<<To be continued in Part 2>>