Retention is the RESULT; Moments & systems are the mechanism

If your team is performing, but not owning outcomes… if turnover keeps showing up right when you need stability… the issue usually isn’t effort. It’s design.

In this episode, I sit down with Chris Dyer, Inc Magazine’s #1 leadership speaker, former CEO of People G2, and current CEO of Hopetape USA, to unpack the real driver behind employee retention strategies that actually work.

What he built wasn’t accidental. It was engineered, through intentional systems, onboarding design, and what he calls “moments that matter.”

We talk about how to reduce employee turnover, why culture doesn’t scale without structure, and how to create a company your team doesn’t want to leave, even after promotions elsewhere.

If you’re scaling a digital agency and want stronger team performance, better handoffs, and a culture that holds under pressure, this gives you a clear, practical framework to implement immediately.

Books Mentioned

• The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
• The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
• The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack
• Good to Great by Jim Collins

Chris’s new book Moments That Matter releases March 24, 2026. Search it on Amazon, or visit chrisdyer.com/moments for direct links. You can also connect with him across social platforms or explore bringing him in as a speaker for your organization.

Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

• Free 30-Minute Discovery Call:
  Ready to elevate your business? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Dr. William Attaway and start your journey to success.
  
  
• Special Offer:
  Get your FREE copy of Catalytic Leadership: 12 Keys to Becoming an Intentional Leader Who Makes a Difference.
  
  

Connect with Dr. William Attaway:

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Highlights

Dr. William Attaway 0:00

I'm excited to have Chris Dyer on the podcast today. Chris is Inc. magazine's number one leadership speaker, a three-time best-selling author, and the former CEO of People G2, a company he built and sold after 20 years that earned Best Place to Work recognition 15 times. He's delivered over 300 keynotes across 21 countries for organizations including NASA, Johnson ⁇ Johnson, and Southwest Airlines. Chris is also CEO of HopeTape USA and Chief Revenue Officer at Engagebeast.ai. His newest book, Moments That Matter, reveals why leaders miss the moments of greatest impact and provides a practical framework for showing up when it counts. Chris, I'm so glad you're here, man. Thanks for being on the show.

Chris Dyer 0:51

Hey, thanks for having me.

Intro 0:55

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host, author, and leadership and executive coach, Dr. William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway 1:12

I would love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners. I hit a few of the high points, but I'd love to hear particularly about your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

9/11 And The Entrepreneur Leap

Chris Dyer 1:23

Boy, I'm gonna get how far back do you want to go? It's like uh I think I think I came out, uh, not to be too graphic, uh, you know, in the hospital room, uh already telling people like, hey, I think we should improve this over here, and we should do like I just I don't know. I've always been we need someone to be in charge, and like my hand was already up halfway before they finished their sentence. You know, I just I don't know why that is. It maybe it's I'm a firstborn, that's part of it. Certainly, you know, my grandfather was an entrepreneur. I think my grandparents, my parents, I mean, just the way parents always were volunteering at charity organizations or church things, or you know, just I think there was that model of like, you want to do something, you want to see change, we you're the one to do it. And that's it. Right. And so I just kind of gravitated towards that and then took a little detour. Like when I graduated college, I went and worked in helping open up a bunch of hotels in Hollywood, which was fun and exciting. And then I went and worked for another background check company. And it wasn't until 9-11 happened when I'm used to go in early, like at six o'clock in the morning to start my day. I'm watching that thing happen in real time. And you know, a lot of people on the West Coast were waking up to it had already happened. Um, and so I was watching it in real time, and that was this moment where I was like, oh, you idiot. You're supposed to be an entrepreneur, you're supposed to be running a business. You, this was your green, your dream, your goal. And I was playing it safe, working for somebody else, you know, have a little mortgage and a little car payment, and just, you know, and then that changed everything. I quit that job and went and started my first company. So I always knew I wanted to be a leader, except for that little spot in the middle where I got a little confused and off the path, you know.

Dr. William Attaway 3:13

That's awesome. You know, making that leap from security, which I put in quotes, because we all know working for somebody else is it really means that you're at the mercy of the person that you're working for, right? That job could end anytime. But it feels safe, it feels secure, it feels stable. Making that leap, what was that like for you?

Chris Dyer 3:34

Um, it was a lot of ramen and tuna fish. I mean, it was, you know, it was a real stretch. It was my my dad fortunately had just retired from being a police officer for 25, 30 years. And so he was like, hey, you want to start a business? I'll start one with you. And so I kind of had at least some support in that. And that helped us kind of get going. But I really I went with no salary for, I don't know, close to a year or something. My goodness. And trying to build it and figure it out. And, you know, every every dollar we made went back into some piece of equipment or hiring somebody or whatever it is we needed to make that business successful. And that meant that, you know, I did a whole lot of uh minimal, minimal everything, no vacations, no nothing, you know, and I had a tiny bit of savings. Fortunately, my now wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, all it all worked out. Like somehow it was just the right time. I always tell people like it was kind of wait for the right time. What's funny is when you make the decision to do something, it magically becomes the right time. Because I think that's good. That pressure, right? Like no one's like ready to have a child, but as soon as you have a child, well then you've got to figure it out, right?

Dr. William Attaway 4:45

That's so true. Well said. So, you know, one of the things that jumped out about you uh is that the company that you built earned best place to work recognition 15 times. That is remarkable. And it is not common. Why did that happen?

Radically Rebuilding Company Culture

Chris Dyer 5:08

Let's see. Probably two things a lot of hard work and a lot of experimentation. And so that that is the actual application of what we did. But say if I want to take a step back from that, like what happened right before then, I made the decision that I needed to radically change the culture back in 2009. Uh, everything we had done from 2001 to 2009 really revolved some version of leadership that I learned from sports coaches, teachers, and my parents. And like, that's okay, but really you can't scale a company with that kind of leadership. And that's not something people teach you. They don't tell you that. You know, you can you can rah-rah, rah and be a sports coach or whatever, or do do as I say because I said so, type of a leader. And that'll work when you got five people in an office. It doesn't work when you got thousands of people you're responding to. And so I had to unlearn some behaviors and I had to turn myself into what I like to refer to as the virtual machete, which is every day I would spend time not helping anybody actually do their job. I was trying to figure out how to help them do their job better. And so that turned into, well, should we be meeting this way or should we be meeting a different way? Should we be, you know, running projects this way, or should we be doing Scrum and Agile? Should we be doing it was all these experimentations of what's the best way for us to collaborate, work, organize our people, and do all of this? And we tried things that sucked for us, that worked for other people. We tried things that worked great for us, and that just became this constant like experimentation. And eventually, probably uh this is probably what happens to like most people who run marathons or triathlete triathlons or things like that. You start to get a little, you get kind of good and you kind of see the the difference, and people start noticing, and they start saying, geez, you look like you work out, or geez, you look like you lost weight. Like that kind of like, geez, your company's doing well. Like, boy, our people really seem happier, our our engagement scores are going up. And it became this like, well, let's keep it going. Like how let's in my mind, it was how do I get to the top of the mountain? Turns out you can't really ever get to the top, top, top, but you can get you can get close. You can see the summit. But that was like the the philosophy, and that helped us then, to my surprise, start winning those awards and getting that recognition because we were constantly thinking about how to adapt and change and deliver a different experience for our people. Ultimately, ultimately, what I was trying to do was create the best place that my people were ever going to work.

Dr. William Attaway 7:55

Hmm.

Chris Dyer 7:56

Wow. And that's a big difference than just I want to have a good culture or I want to have, you know, whatever.

Dr. William Attaway 8:01

Yeah.

Chris Dyer 8:01

Right? There's a difference. And I've said this a few times recently, but like unlike the Olympics, which we just, you know, if you're watching this fresh, we just went through the Winter Olympics. There can only be one gold medalist.

unknown 8:13

That's right.

Chris Dyer 8:14

In an event. But when it comes to culture, when it comes to your organization, every organization and every team can have this goal and achieve it. And it is not interdependent on some other company. Yes, there are lists of best places to work, but I'm talking about for you personally, you can make your team the best team they'll ever work on. You can make your company the best company they're going to work for, your division, your department, whatever that framing is, whatever you have actual authority over, then you can do that. And that is achievable regardless of anything else that's happening in the world. And that stretch goal, that's the difference. Right? That's the that where when you get everyone thinking about how do we do that? That's the difference.

Dr. William Attaway 8:56

Oh, that's so good. And this is what you write about in your new book, Moments That Matter.

The Framework For Big Moments

Chris Dyer 9:01

Well, in the new book, it's a little different. So I would say my first three books, I did a book on culture. Then I got really lucky and launched a book in March, the month we went into COVID on remote work. Oh wow. Time, timely. And then everyone said, ah, forget remote work. And so I went back and relaunched the culture book, doubled it up, really beefed it up and gave a lot more content and examples and case studies. And so I would say kind of what we talked about just now was really what was in my last book on the power of company culture, the second edition about what were those things and all of that. In response to what I have seen in the last year and a half, which is an absolute resistance at times, fear, and everything around all of the change that is happening. We've been dealing with that. I've been doing a ton of keynotes around how to deal with change, how to thrive through all of this real on this change. But I noticed that inside of that was another little story about how do leaders know when they need to, like I did, what I could do, I am gonna be the virtual machete now. Like I'm gonna step up and we're gonna do this big thing and try to create this big change. How do I, as a leader, know, or as a parent, as a spouse, as a neighbor, whatever that relationship is, this book will give you that framework. It doesn't have to be work, and half the examples in the book are not work-related. It's how do I, in any relationship, know when to step up? Because we've been told for years, don't sweat the small stuff. And that's wonderful advice. But you better sweat the big stuff. Like no one's saying what's the counter to that. The counter is you better show up for the big stuff, big big time for your people. If you're gonna let the little stuff go and let them handle it and not get frustrated by little things, that means you got to step up big. And so this is my playbook for people on how do I know when I'm supposed to show up? How am I supposed to know when this is a big moment? And then what do I do? And then how do I make sure people know what the heck happened so that we can deliver that safety and repeatable experience and all like, you know, if I did something great for you and you're my neighbor, like if none of the other neighbors know that, then they're not gonna know I'm a good neighbor. Right. And and and maybe that's something they need to know, not because I want to look good or because I want to show off, but like you had a problem and I showed up for you. They know if they have a problem, I'm gonna show up for them, which means that they're gonna show up for me if I have a problem. Like it's that reciprocal kind of like, how do you create a real community? And that's making sure people know the real stories and what's really happening.

Dr. William Attaway 11:45

Your team has leaned into this. You know, shared a story with me when we talked before about how you met with some of your team after the after the business was sold, your first business, right? And they talked about the culture and the environment that you had created there. I'd love for you to share that because I think that illustrates what you're talking about here, this the these moments that matter.

Chris Dyer 12:09

Well, when I talked about you can you can see the summit, you can see the peak. You maybe won't quite get there. This was kind of one of those moments where we were, we had gone to dinner, there was two former employees, and they had done really well with my company. When we sold, they did really well. They were high up high up executives and they got bonuses and things like that. And then the new company loves them. And the new company's giving them promotions and giving them raises. And so when we're sitting at dinner, we're talking about, you know, the good old days. We're also talking about all the exciting, cool things they're doing, and that I'm happy that the they're having success in the new company. But by the time we got to the night cap, the final drink, at the end of the night, it suddenly came up that they were mad at me. And I'm I'm just like baffled. You know, I'm like, what are you guys talking about? You know. And what I got from them was when one of the gen, one of the people in the in the room with me that day said, you know, everything's fine with a new company. Like, I'd be happy to work at this company any point of my career. Like they're a good company. There's nothing wrong with it. We're complaining in any shape or form. But they said, it's not the same. There's something about the value of the work, there's something about my ability to make an impact. There's something about like, you know, it's just not the same. Like what we did before was the best of times. And that realization from them that it was the best of times. And we're all big um office fans. And so people might remember that Andy Bernard's character says, I wish someone would tell you when you were in the best of times. Because he was reflecting back to when he was just an employee and he wasn't in charge of the branch anymore, and Michael Scott was his boss. And for him, that was the best of times. Of course, it's crazy and ridiculous because Michael Scott was a terrible boss. But that, you know, there was that like, I wish I knew I was in that moment before I was out of the moment. Right. And so this, if you ever watch The Office, is a great example. Andy Bernard's now running the company, he has a promotion, he's now in charge of the division. Like you would say, things are better for him than he was when he was a salesperson. And yet here he is saying, I wish I had known it was the best of times. So that's what that gentleman was saying. And then the other person in the room said to me, I would give all the money and the promotions back to be back working in the old. And that was just like this, are you kidding me? Like, what am I? And so best worst compliment. Um, and it wasn't, you know, I certainly was felt like I was driving the ship in in the regards of the I wanted us to have the best place to work for our people. But they and and so many other leaders in the organizations were actually the ones responsible for the things that happened that actually created that environment. So this wasn't a direct compliment to me, it was a direct compliment to the overall leadership and to the organization that we created together. And but I started started asking them, like, okay, so help me understand why. I'm you know, we're we're about to depart here, we may never be in this moment again. Why? And it took them a moment to think about it, but then they started telling me about well, do you remember the time we did this? Do you remember the time we did that? Do you remember the time we almost lost the million-dollar client, but we stayed up till 2 a.m. We all came together, we made it happen. Like all of these examples, and in my mind it took, and I was like, okay, okay, and we departed, and the next morning I woke up and I went, they're talking about moments. Yeah. They're not talking about consistency. They're not talking about like personalities, they're not talking about that I cared about them or what. I mean, all of those things were true, but they're talking about big moment, we showed up big. I showed up big, they showed up big, whatever it is, like we were a moment's culture that if you worked for me and like your one of your parents passed away, we're sending obscene large amounts of flowers to your that funeral. Like we want you to know we care about you, we understand this is a really big traumatic thing in your in your life right now. The company is here for you and we support you, and we're gonna send a big old the flowers on the giant stand to be in in the church or wherever that ceremony's at to be there to support you on that day. We we did big things in big moments, and then pulled way back and let leaders do their thing on the small stuff. And we're not prescriptive about those little things. It was get those big things right. And so that's what the book is about. It was like, okay, well, how do we do that? And how do you know? And like what are other examples in history where like this is true, you know, that some people don't know. Like, we almost we almost had a king, right? When the United States was born. We there was literally a moment where George Washington stood there and he could have said, eh, I think I'm just gonna stay the supreme commander of the military, and I'm now your king. And everyone would have said, okay. I mean, literally, like half the country was saying he should be the king. Even though we just fought for our independence from a king. He was such a good guide and he was so well liked and so successful. We almost had a king. And he had this moment to say, I know what we just fought for, and I know what we want is something better than that. And he went in and relinquished his title in the military. And then years later became president again. There's these big moments where we have to show up and do something big for the benefit of others and benefit of our company or benefit of our community or whatever.

Dr. William Attaway 17:46

So good. Yeah, as I think about my journey, I think about moments like that. And as you tell those stories, and I think about, oh wow, those are not the moments that so often you plan for. They don't show up on the quarterly planning or the annual planning, like we're gonna have a moment in June. Yeah. It's a it's more organic than that.

Engineering Inception And Recognition Moments

Chris Dyer 18:06

It is more organic, but you can make sure that when the moments happen, you are being intentional about spreading that around the organization or around that team that you are, you know, recognizing people. You are, you know, there's lots of different types, there's seven different types of moments. One of them is recognition moments. So you have to make sure you're recognizing people when these things happen. And that's that's also part of the culture framework. Recognition is a pretty well understood thing. But there are other moments that you can engineer if you think about it. Now, one of those is inception moments. Inception moments are firsts. So you might think about a first date. That might be the day you fell in love with your spouse or your partner, right? Like first date in that big thing that happened. But the first day at a company is their very first inception moment.

unknown 19:02

True.

Chris Dyer 19:03

Highly scripted what happened on someone's first day. We were we were having a turnover, right? Because our job was high pressure, our job was high stakes. We were running background checks to make sure criminals and sex offenders didn't get into places they shouldn't be into. And like, that's a little bit of stress for some people. And they they make a mistake, they mistyped something, like they could really something bad could happen to somebody else in the world. And so that was a that was pressure that some people struggled to deal with. And so we we had some turnover and we wanted to do wanted to fix that. And so what we did is we just highly prescribed what happened. We made sure that they got their laptop, all of their forms and all of the compliance stuff done in advance. Now we even like paid them, you know, a certain amount of hours in advance. It was on their first check, like to get that stuff done. We got all of their business cards, their swag, like everything had to be done and in their hands before they started on their first day. Or we delayed their first day and then paid them, anyways. Like they were supposed to start on a Monday, we would say, Well, I'm so sorry we're not ready. You're getting paid for Monday, go enjoy the day. Like go to the beach, go have a good time. We'll start on Tuesday. And they were like, and that rarely happened, but when it did, people were like, Really? You don't have to pay me. I'm like, no, we're, you know. But we made sure that like they had, you know, we were fully remote. Sometimes it was on Zoom, but if there was anybody anywhere near them, could they have lunch with a with someone in the company? Right? Did they meet with their boss right away? Did they meet with their team right away? Did they get assigned a buddy right away to answer their questions? Did we provide them all the resources and videos and trainings? And like we wanted them to hit the ground running on day one if they wanted to. And and for them to never have to say, um, where's this or how do I do that? Or what am I supposed to do? No, we're and and also on day one, 95% of the time, sometimes I couldn't do it, but 95% of the time, on day one, they met with me. Anybody whose first day it was, they met with me, and I did a 30-minute culture presentation. And it was here's how our culture works, here's what I expect, and I need you to be my eyes and ears, because you're now going into my culture with fresh eyes and fresh ears. And if you're not seeing what I'm telling you is supposed to be happening right now, I need you to come back and tell me. Because I can't fix it. If you go out there and you're like, Well, that was a bunch of crap Chris told me for 30 minutes, because that's not how this company really worked. If you don't give me that feedback right now, I can't fix it.

Dr. William Attaway 21:51

It's good.

Chris Dyer 21:52

Right? And so they got all of that on day one, along with like we would listen to them in the interviews if we could figure it out. Figure out they had a favorite candy or a favorite meal or something they were really into. We would send them as a part of the swag bot. Like, remember this one person said that like sweetest fish were their favorite thing. We sell them like five pounds of sweetest fish on their first day, right? Those people never left. Like our turnover rate was nil. Right now we had to keep doing other things to keep that going. But people know on day one, they know in the first two minutes that they're gonna make it two hours, and two hours if they're gonna make it two days, and they know in two days if they're gonna make it two weeks, and they know in two weeks if they're gonna make it two months, and they know in two months if they're gonna make it two years. Like you've already kind of subconsciously made this decision of like, how long am I gonna last in this job before I'm probably gonna go look for something else or go somewhere else? And so you have this incredible ability right away to be like, we're the best place you're ever gonna work. Day one. Here we go. Are you on board? You want to roll with us? Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're like, whoa, I didn't realize you guys were this good. I'm not this good. I'm gonna go over here and be crappy in this other company. Sometimes we have people that self-selected out. That's cool. Right. But that's what we did. Those are some of the ways you can manufacture some of that.

Leadership Growth Through Reading Systems

Dr. William Attaway 23:08

I love the intentionality. I think that's so powerful. And I think that's something any of our listeners can step into. This is just not take, it's not rocket science, right? It's learning how to value and appreciate people as individuals. That's what I'm hearing. I just I love that. You have to lead at a higher level today than you did four or five years ago. And the same thing is gonna be true four or five years from now. Your team, your clients, all the people that you serve. How do you continue to develop the skills that you are going to need and your clients and team are gonna need you to have in the years to come?

Chris Dyer 23:46

Years ago, I realized that I had a stack of books on my dresser, on my nightstand, uh, that I had intended to read, but I never did read. And I got tired of my wife saying, Are you gonna like, you know, read those things or are you gonna put them away? Or you mean, you know, what are we doing here, buddy? You know. And so I had uh just read, this is a long, long time ago. I had just read uh The Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris.

Dr. William Attaway 24:13

Yeah.

Chris Dyer 24:14

And I did not adopt a four-hour work week. But what I did adopt was he has in there some of these ideas about how do you create a lever or a mechanism to make you do something. One of his levers is like, you know, if I don't eat, if I don't work out every single day, then I've got money in an escrow account that's gonna go to like the worst organization I would ever want this money to go to. Like, and so there's somebody else in charge of the escrow account. And if I don't work out every day, then the money is being donated to worst, worst organization killing babies.com or whatever this like horrible organization is, right? And so I didn't want to do that, but it was an interesting like mental exercise of how do you create the lever to make sure you're gonna do the thing that you said you want to do. And for me, I wanted to read the books. So I thought about what motivates me. Well, if I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it. If I say, if I commit to a group of people that I'm gonna read a book or I'm gonna do a thing, or I'm gonna show up, or I'm gonna write this report, or I'm gonna present this thing, high hell or high water, I will do it. That is just how my DNA is, you know? And I'm probably one of those idiots that'd be like, you know, in a hospital room, like getting operated on with the Zoom open, going, I said I would be here, you know, like, you know. So I realized I could invite people to a book club, create a book club. I need to facilitate that once a month. And by doing that, I made sure that I read 12 books, 12 really important books that were really what I needed to be thinking about and growing towards as a person, as a leader. So this is not reading, you know, Harry Potter for the 900th time, or this is not reading, you know, Lord of the Rings or whatever. This is reading, like, you know, very specific intentional books, mostly business books, some biographies, some historical texts and things like that, or stoicism. But when I did that, then I was reading all the books. And then getting in the habit of reading the book than when I was in between books, then I read another book, even though I didn't have to. Because I was in the habit of always, and I when I say read, I listen. That was another thing I had to realize that I'm much more likely to finish the book if I listen to it. Because I can do it in the car, I can do it on a walk with the dogs, I can, you know, be have it in my ear, I can be doing work and have it in my ear and be listening. And so that was my mechanism to get that done. But I think ultimately, to answer your question, that is how I've been able to like, you know, how do you keep your your sword sharp? And and that's to be constantly being exposed to new ideas and exposed to even old ideas, old books and things that I hadn't been exposed to. But then also to go and argue about that with a group of people. And to have that, you know, what was what what's important or not? Because I can like read a book and be like, well, those are the three most important things. I got in the book club and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. This was the most important. Oh, well, why did you think that? And and to get those different perspectives and understand what different people are and different roles. That that that's kind of like that third element that really helps. And you're reminding me now that I was planning on kind of retooling the book club, and we're in the process of doing that, and I haven't read a book for a month. And I'm just because I don't have that thing in in there. I don't have that date set of when I had to have the book done by that's good.

Dr. William Attaway 27:43

Systems you create, determine the results that you get. I love that. So intentional again. Uh you know, as a reader, is there a book that's made a big difference in your journey that you'd recommend to the leaders who are listening?

Chris Dyer 27:56

I have about as many as you have behind you right now, probably to say. Let me let me let me throw out a couple of my favorites. I'll just give you the titles and maybe if you tell me if you want to go deeper or me to explain why on that one. So some of the ones that I really love are The Art of Gathering, uh, The Great Game of Business. Hmm, I'm trying to think what would be like the third one. I mean, I mentioned the four-hour work week. I think that certainly like turned how you think about working on its head, even if you don't do four-hour work week. And in good degree, it's certainly, you know, um another like that kind of got me that first journey of how do I think about that. Was the first step of getting eventually to how do you create the best place your people are ever gonna work, right? That was that first thinking differently.

Dr. William Attaway 28:45

So talk to me about the the art of gathering. I'm not familiar with that book. What what was it about that book?

Chris Dyer 28:50

It's a great book. Um, the author, she really talks about how do you create this seems to be the theme of of our podcast here today, is in an intentional place, intentional space, an intentional way of meeting. And one of the things that I learned that created higher satisfaction amongst my employees was for us to get meetings right. So were we meeting intentionally? Were we meeting only as much as we needed to meet, and not meeting more than we needed to meet? That's that's huge for most companies. Um were we thinking about creating the rules and expectations of those different types of meetings? Now she was setting up meetings for like Mid-East Peace Treaties and all kinds of like really high-stakes stuff. I'm talking about how do we talk about the you know our operational backload today, you know. But I learned two really important things from that. I had been in the camp of I'm the cool guy, I'm not gonna put too many rules on this, we can just meet. And what I learned was that people the more the rules that are in place, the better people perform. So if you think about a party, what's the most popular party that you've attended your entire life? Do you know what it is?

Dr. William Attaway 30:13

No, I'd have to think about that. Nothing, nothing immediately.

Chris Dyer 30:16

It's a birthday party. Well, birthday parties are significantly highly attended by the people that you invite. You invite 40 people to a birthday party, you get pretty close to that. I mean, you get a pretty close number, right? A lot of people. I invite everyone over for a pool party on a Saturday that has no real reason or intention. I'm begging people to show up.

Dr. William Attaway 30:40

You know what I mean?

Chris Dyer 30:41

Like you invite 40, you might get 15, you might get 12. And that's because a birthday party has a set of rules. We know exactly when to show up. We know what to do, we know what to bring, we know what's probably gonna be served to eat. We know when what happens when we sing and and the candles get blown out, and we know like we're allowed to leave now. It's good. Right? Like, we don't there is no anxiety about what's gonna happen in a birthday party. Now, there are some exceptions, but like you invite me to a kid's birthday party, it's a locked-in two hours, I know what's gonna happen. I'm in and I'm out, I bring a present. I'm I have no anxiety about that. I'm not gonna screw it up, you know? But you invite me to like a dinner party, and there's no like it's just who's gonna be there, what are you gonna serve? What's gonna happen? Is this gonna be all night? Are you gonna be pouring me nine bottles of wine and I'm not when am I gonna be able to leave? And like, you know, personally I'm happy with the nine bottles and I'll stay all night and talk to you. But like some people have real anxiety about like, when do I gotta take out? And so I I my wife and I had taken our sons to Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic over a summer. And I had made the mistake of telling them that if we go to a beer garden, they could have a beer, because in Germany at that time, they were legal to drink a beer or a rattler, as they call like half lemonade, half beer. Um, they were not legal to drink in the United States at that time. And of course, being the smart gentleman that they were, manipulated their way into a beer garden every single day so they could have their little tiny beer. So we but we really loved checking out so many different beer gardens on our trip and the difference between the different countries. And so I decided we were gonna come home and cancel our usual swim party where we invite 40 people and 12 people show up. And we were gonna have a beer garden party. And so I invite 45 people to a beer garden party. And except this time I say we will only drink beer from Austria, Germany, or the Czech Republic. We will only have German food. You must dress up or wear German colors or Bavarian colors, but you gotta do something to be festive, right? German soccer jersey, I don't care, but something. And the party will start at this time to this time. We will have a lifeguard for children, and then when the sun goes down, the children are not allowed, and the Jahrmeister is allowed. Like I was so prescriptive about the rules because I just read this book. Invited 45 people, and 75 people showed up. People brought people we didn't invite. People, neighbors told neighbors I didn't even tell, and they just came anyways. And their lesson I learned was when the people know the rules, when they know how to act, and they know what's expected, they know what to do, and then they suddenly can relax and they can have fun. Or they can do great work, or they can, whatever the reason for the meeting is. And so we took that back into the company and we started creating all these crazy meeting types: cockroach meetings, tiger team meetings, ostrich meetings, tsunami planning meetings, all of these little meeting types that had very prescriptive rules about how long the meeting was, what you were supposed to do, what you're not supposed to do. And people loved it. Because it wasn't the same dumb or repeatable 30-minute meeting over and over and over.

Dr. William Attaway 34:02

That's good.

Chris Dyer 34:03

And so that was our intentional way of like, how do we help people meet when they need to meet, but clear all the crap out of their calendars? Because if you look at your calendar, does that reflect what you say your intentions are for your work? Of what your does your calendar reflect your priorities? Yeah. And I guarantee right now it doesn't. And if you go back and you change how you meet, you'll be able to level set.

Book Launch And How To Connect

Dr. William Attaway 34:30

Chris, I could talk to you for another hour. This has been so fascinating. And I get to learn first before we ever air this episode. And I'm so grateful for that. And for you sharing so generously from experience.

Chris Dyer 34:42

My pleasure.

Dr. William Attaway 34:43

I know folks are going to want to stay connected to you and learn more about what you're doing and get a copy of your book. What is the best way for them to do that?

Chris Dyer 34:51

Well, I think by the time this airs, they should be able to go to Amazon. Uh, March 24th, the book drops uh Moments That Matter, Chris Dyer. Look for that. If for some reason you don't see it, you can always go to ChrisDyer.com slash moments, and I'm sure we'll have a link there to all the different places you can buy it. And happy to connect with anybody on all the different social media platforms. Or if you bring in speakers to your organization, I'm happy to talk to you about that.

Dr. William Attaway 35:16

Love it. We'll have all those links in the show notes. Chris, thank you so much for today.

Chris Dyer 35:21

Thank you so much.