The barriers to innovation inside large organizations are real — but not insurmountable
CHANGE by ONE JAPAN is an intrapreneurship program designed for employees at large Japanese corporations who want to build new businesses from within. This event report covers the third lecture session, featuring three speakers who have each navigated the specific challenge of creating something new inside an organization that wasn't designed for it.
The session covered personal origin stories, practical approaches to building ventures inside large companies, and the role that communities and peer networks play in sustaining the motivation to keep going.
Part 1: Program overview
Ryuta Hamamoto (TIMEWELL / ONE X) opened with an overview of what CHANGE offers participants. Three core benefits were highlighted:
- Community: access to a network of people attempting similar work in different organizations
- Mindset and skill development: frameworks specific to corporate innovation, distinct from startup methodology
- Public platform: visibility and accountability through group sharing and presentation
CHANGE runs weekly online workshop seminars with 80+ experienced mentors. The program is designed explicitly for employees who want to build new ventures while remaining inside their current organizations.
Mori (Suntory): reinventing the vending machine
Mori has spent 11 years at Suntory and has launched approximately five new business projects — none through a formal new business division. All were self-initiated.
His mission: "Create new business that contributes to the V-shaped recovery of vending machines."
The logic is counterintuitive. Vending machines generate roughly ¥2,000 per day — the lowest revenue per unit in retail. They're perceived as unglamorous, outdated, and in long-term decline. Mori's argument is that this perception creates an opening: it's one of the few industries where Japan could plausibly compete at a world-class level if someone takes the assets seriously.
His approach is what he calls "partial regression → evolution strategy" — deliberately removing an expected function to create something new. Remove the refrigeration from a vending machine and you have a self-checkout kiosk. Apply that logic systematically to the machine's underused features, and new business models emerge. One example: the "Boss's Treat Machine" — a vending machine where company funds pre-loaded by management offer free drinks to employees.
On idea generation: "Factor-decompose the assets your company already has. Then deliberately regress one dimension to evolve the overall concept."
Doi (Toyota / ONE X): building permission structures from scratch
Doi's career began in process improvement at Toyota's used-car logistics operations. He never formally transferred out of the improvement department — he just kept operating across organizational boundaries.
His insight: new ventures require different governance than mature businesses. In an organization built around established processes and hierarchical decision-making, the only way to do genuinely new work is to create a parallel structure with different rules.
His method: informal. He wrote a rough proposal and started pitching it to senior people. Positive reactions were enough to justify posting about a "Change Toyota" initiative on the company intranet. More than 100 people showed up to the first event.
The program grew from there, eventually becoming a formal business competition with a proposal pathway into actual new ventures. The most important ingredient: continuity. Most internal innovation initiatives die because the people running them get reassigned, lose interest, or stop showing up. Simply continuing was the differentiator.
His observation: "You can build the will later. I started by just going to drinks with people. Taking an action now changes your future."
Hamamoto (TIMEWELL / ONE X): communities as the engine of intrapreneurial innovation
Hamamoto's three origin experiences shaped his approach to corporate innovation:
- Being hit by a truck in college — the experience crystallized a sense that life is short and should be used on things that matter
- Watching Panasonic nearly collapse after the iPhone disrupted its core business — attending a grassroots employee event (ONE Panasonic) as a side activity revealed what community-driven energy could produce
- Selling AI devices and realizing that operational work would be automated away, creating urgency to become someone who builds rather than maintains
The thesis he developed from these experiences: corporate innovation programs fail when they start from problem framing ("issue-first" approaches create structured analysis but not energy). The approach that works starts from building genuine enthusiasm and deepening relationships before introducing challenges to solve.
The cycle he described:
- Build enthusiasm and affinity (people need to actually like each other and the community)
- Deepen relationships through shared activity
- Surface real challenges together
- Execute on solutions
"The most important thing is enthusiasm. Starting with the problem kills it."
Panel Q&A highlights
"Why don't you just go independent?"
- Mori: "I want to leave proof that I lived. The company's assets give me leverage I couldn't build from scratch."
- Doi: "I believe in the potential of large organizations. One person's success has limited reach. If I can build a model that scales across Toyota, the impact multiplies."
- Hamamoto: "I don't think in terms of startup vs. corporation. My purpose is solving social problems. I use whatever position gives me the best leverage."
On maintaining motivation:
- Mori: "Find the person who believes in your potential most — and use their expectation as fuel."
- Doi: "You can't run indefinitely without refueling. CHANGE is a place to do that refueling — people who feel what you feel."
- Hamamoto: "Meeting high-energy people three or more times per week. New business people tend to have high energy, so working with them compounds it."
On time management:
- Hamamoto: "Read Mori's book. Efficiency is something I'm always working on. But 'I'm too busy' is often a mindset issue. If you believe you have time, you find it."
- Doi: "Someone I respect told me: 'If you can't perform at 120% in your main job, I won't let you do side projects.' That forced me to get ruthlessly efficient."
- Mori: "Find the work that generates results efficiently, and migrate toward it."
Summary
The session's collective message: change from inside large organizations is genuinely possible, but it requires a different approach than startup thinking. The structural assets of large companies — brand, customers, capital, talent, distribution — are powerful levers that startups don't have access to. Using those levers effectively, while building the internal permission structures and peer networks that sustain long-term effort, is the specific skill that CHANGE is designed to develop.
The most important habit: just start. Take one action. What changes next follows from that.
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