Google Resilience & Innovation Workshop

Empowering Google's global marketing team to fight monotony and keep innovation alive.

Service

Capabilities

Experience Design

Background

In the summer of 2019, Google hosted an offsite for their marketing team in New Orleans, with the theme of "Resilience and Celebration." They asked Hyperakt to facilitate a workshop for Google employees about how resilience can also be manifested in innovation.

A large group of people gathered in a spacious conference room with tables arranged in rows. Attendees are engaged in discussions and activities, with some writing on colorful sticky notes. A presenter stands near a screen displaying a presentation.

The challenge

How might we unlock the full creative potential of our product and marketing teams by teaching to them to be more flexible, resilient, and innovative?

A speaker stands in front of a large audience in a conference room, presenting with the aid of two large screens displaying the text: "Our work is not an accident. It is the result of the culture of experimentation we've created." The audience is seated and attentive.

The opportunity

The Hyperakt team conducted a 2-hour workshop, for 140 members of Google's global marketing team. We based our workshop on three guiding questions:

"How might we enable Google marketers to see old problems in new ways?"

"How might we establish behaviors and rituals that give Googlers the room to explore unexplored territory, consider different angles, and try new things (innovation)?"

"How might we increase our appetite for bouncing back when plans change and learning from failed experiments (resilience)?"

People are gathered in a large room engaging in discussions and writing on papers. Some are standing near tables, while others are mingling. The room has modern lighting, a stage with screens displaying text, and a lively, collaborative atmosphere.

The experience

Hyperakt worked with our experience design friends at Mischief Makers and facilitators at Women's Brain Trust to explore various options. We crafted different workshop scenarios that could help us solve this challenge — all with various degrees of interaction, spontaneity and spark.

A group of people gathered around a table participating in a collaborative activity with colorful sticky notes. The scene appears dynamic, with each person engaged in adding or rearranging notes on a large sheet.

Impact

We facilitated a learning and skill-building experience that was not only engaging but also participatory and fun. This unique session ignited new conversations and interactions, offering the Google staff a fresh lens through which to view their work. As a result, the participants left the session feeling inspired to approach their tasks with renewed perspectives. They felt confident in the vast array of skills already present in their toolbox and felt fully equipped to integrate new behaviors within their teams.

A gradient background transitioning from turquoise to blue with the text "GALLERY OF SUPERPOWERS" in bold white letters, where "GALLERY OF" is on the left against a turquoise section and "SUPERPOWERS" is on the right against a blue section.

A wall displays numerous hand-drawn sketches of faces on individual pieces of paper. The drawings vary in style and detail, each accompanied by handwritten notes in different colors. The arrangement is orderly, with sketches pinned or taped in a grid-like pattern.

Drawing on our superpowers

Objective: Articulate existing strengths that we can draw from when developing new behaviors

How to: Find a partner, draw your partner’s face without lifting your pen off the page or breaking eye contact, ask them for their superpower:

"What unique ability, behavior, or attitude can you contribute to your team to promote resilience and innovation?"

Responses: Cultural competence, creative thinking, decisiveness, empathy, an inquisitive mind, systems thinking, peace-making, sense-making, simplification, distillation, etc.

A bulletin board displays 24 sheets of paper, each showcasing a hand-drawn self-portrait. Below each drawing, there are name prompts and fields filled in with various handwritten names, superpowers, and family member labels. The illustrations vary in style and detail.

Futuremapping

Objective: Practice the skill of "looking out", defined as the ability to look beyond the organization’s walls to understand customers, technologies, and cultural shifts. Develop the ability to “think beyond” and “think forward”.

How to: Reflect on technological trends, business trends, societal trends, and human needs. Choose 1 trend and 1 human need to pull forward for conversation.

A vivid red background with the words "Future Statements" written in bold white text. The left side of the image features a large gradient rectangle transitioning from orange to light yellow.

People participate in a workshop, standing around a circular table filled with colorful sticky notes organized into various sections like "business trends", "social trends", and "technology trends." One person is reaching to place a note, engaging in the activity.

A diverse group of people are gathered around a circular table, actively engaged in a collaborative activity with colorful sticky notes. The table is covered in a blue mat with labeled sections, and the background includes refreshments and supplies on tables.

A blue radar chart with a gradient background and a "G" in the center. The chart has four quadrants labeled: Business Trends, Human Needs, Societal Trends, Technological Trends. Each quadrant mentions "The Future" and "2019" next to it.

This image shows a 4x3 grid consisting of 12 circular gradient charts, each with a central "G" and labeled axes. The charts display various color gradients ranging from blue to red, with differences in intensity and gradients in each chart.

A group of people sits around a table covered with colorful sticky notes, engaged in a discussion. In the center of the table, a piece of paper with "2025" written on it is visible. The setting appears to be a collaborative workshop or brainstorming session.

A vision for a new way of working together

Objective: Articulate how the team will work together to address these trends?

How to: Reflect what might happen at the intersection of these two trends through the following questions:

What opportunities do we see for Google?

What threats do we see in Google?

How will we work together as a team to address these trends?

A group of people are gathered in a room with a wooden floor and dark walls. They are seated at tables with colorful sticky notes and pens. On a wall, there are several posters with the year 2025 and other text. Above them is a banner that reads "FUTURE STATEMENTS.

Three posters from the "Google Marketing Team" display 2025 goals. Left: Increase helpfulness of technology and prioritize "PURPOSE." Middle: Decrease digital addiction, increase loving others and being loved, and mental health. Right: Decrease automatic algorithms use.

Connecting superpowers to the vision

Objective: A social contract gives the group insight into how to establish a solid foundation amongst teams. Establish the very first steps you can take in order to get your process in order.

How to: Articulate 5 helping behaviors, and 5 hindering behaviors