How to do internal hackathons the right way?

The answer lies in creating an aspirational culture, or a culture of opportunity. Organizations owe their employees pathways for recognition and upward mobility, with inbuilt mechanisms for mentorship and skill augmentation. In a sense, organizations promote their brand to a customer and employees alike -" this is what we stand for, this is who we are, trust us, we will take care of you!" McJobs being devoid of these qualities are then high turnover, whereas the Starbucks job is a pathway to learning customer service and management skills under middle class values. But yes, creating this ethos takes enormous concerted effort! Complicating matters are trends of talent poaching and paypacket competition between industry rivals (this affects mid level and up more). Great question - happy to help you create a strategy of belonging!

Almost all my clients have the same issue as yours. So your challenges are not unique. While making positive business progress is a wonderful thing, external growth must come with relevant similar pace of internal growth. It seems that you are using the same old management approach/ style despite your business has grown from 1 or 2 people into current size. It is no more purely a number game now, mismanaging people will lead to loss of knowledge, valuable customer, profits, and growth potential. Your backyard is having fire currently means your internal support team is having some challenges and you may have uneven growth in some business functions - immediately you should investigate the following areas: 1. Review your management approach/ style and system 2. Review whether you are capable to manage C-level employees. 3. Review your human capital policies and culture diversity 4. Review, whether you have clear/ appropriate a) accountabilities, b) roles and responsibilities, c) committed budget, d) monitoring and control system, e) KPIs, etc 5. Revisit your mission/ vision/ expectations, adjust if necessary. 6. Review workflows and communication models to identify what has triggered the conflict(s). I think the above should help. Upon making the reviewing, you may already have action plans. If you still have problems, feel free to drop me a message

No-Skill-Guitar: Get a [guitar (Jasmine S35 Acoustic Guitar)] + [chord buddy (chordbuddy.com)] + [electronic tuner (Intelli IMT500)]. Any time you hear a good song, look up the chords for free on ultimate-guitar.com, save the page as a .pdf, and you'll be able to play the song right away on the guitar with the chordbuddy, even if you don't know how to play the guitar. You'll bond over sing alongs, and you'll be learning how to play the guitar at the same time with the help of the chordbuddy. Hacky sack Local Multiplayer Games (everyone plays on the same computer): Get a couple wireless controllers (Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows), and download these local multiplayer games from Steam: 1) Speed Runners (http://store.steampowered.com/app/207140/) 2) Starwhal (http://store.steampowered.com/app/263020/) 3) Duck Game (http://store.steampowered.com/app/312530/) 4) Nidhogg (http://store.steampowered.com/app/94400/) Naptime: Get an ENO hammock for people to nap in. It's healthier and easier to sleep in than a real bed, and can be stowed away. They'll be able to work later. Have fun

Backwards. I'd make sure that person didn't stay in the company. "One dirty fish muddies the whole pond" It's not personal or malicious - they're just not the right fit. A great skill set, while very important is always secondary to cultural fit if you really want your company to flourish.

I'm going to answer this from the perspective of an engineer who has worked in similar environments and who has had leadership changes that went well, as well as ones that didn't Basically you're describing an environment in which people aren't doing as much as they are capable of, they were working in a hostile environment in which threats were common, and there's a sort of lack of accountability + poor communication / collaboration. Okay first thing, I wouldn't recommend using analytics to hold people accountable. Not yet anyway. It's a carrot and a stick problem and bringing out the stick first... you're likely to add demoralized staff to the list of problems you're trying to solve. What if instead you talked to everyone and explained your vision for the company and then followed up with each employee over the next week or two. Figure out what their vision for their own career is and what they want the next year to look like, the the next three, the next five. If you can align your employee's goals and ambitions to your own, I think you'll have a lot more luck getting people to solve the disfunction that they can. And they'll be a lot more understanding when you start taking measures to hold people accountable. Again, just my perspective as an engineer. I would bet you that the people you are working with are aware of the same problems as you. And they would probably agree with you that people need to be held accountable. But you need to be careful about how you do that. Accountability right now probably will look like more micromanagement and intimidation. Paint a picture for where you want to go and commit to helping your people reach where they want to go... well, then accountability isn't such a bitter pill and it will likely be seen as necessary, not more of the same toxic leadership that wrecked the culture last time.