Never Ever Start A Meeting Late
Imagine the scene. You've arrived, on time, for a meeting. You’re not late. You are on time. Twelve of you have arrived on time.
You’re all in the room, pads and pens at the ready, agenda printed out.
Then the chair says:
"Well, most of us are here now. I think we're just waiting for x so we'll give them a few more minutes and then we'll make a start."
We've all been there right? It's a very normal situation. But it's wrong.
When I hear a sentence like that it translates into my head as:
"Well, most of us are here now, but our collective time is not as important as this one person's time. I'm going to disrespect all of you by prioritising this other person."
Lock Them Out
When I'm chairing a meeting I say:
"Right, it's time to start the meeting. If you’re late you will not be admitted so I'm locking the door."
And then I lock it.
That's not true.
I'm not a sociopath. Locking the door when the meeting starts would be effective but a bit too harsh.
A better approach is to simply start the meeting without the late people.
Late People Cost You
Waiting is expensive. It might only be five minutes but multiply that by the number of people in the room already. If there are 12 people in the room that's an hour of productivity wasted.
By waiting five minutes you've wasted a full hour! That hour costs money so because of late people you're misappropriating funds! That’s an interesting perspective isn’t it?
Not starting when you say you're going to start sends out the wrong message.
Waiting for late people:
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wastes time
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costs money
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decreases productivity
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makes having a starting time pointless
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establishes a precedent of loose timekeeping
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disrespects the effort made by those present
You are only as strong as the weakest link in your team but you don't need to let late individuals bring everyone down.
By they way, usually, it's the same people who are late. Yes, they've always got a valid reason but it's always them.
The Reason Late People Are Late
"I'm ten minutes late because . . . "
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The traffic was terrible
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I got stopped by a traffic cop who gave me a warning
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Right before I set off my dog was sick
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I had to turn back and get my purse / wallet
All of these sound like valid reasons but the key point to focus on is those ten minutes.
In all of those cases if you'd set off ten minutes earlier you'd have arrived on time.
The next time you hear yourself offering an excuse for being late remember this.
The reason you are ten minutes late for anything is always that you set off ten minutes too late.
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