On being late for meetings.

Does it even matter?

For some people being late for meetings is a habit. For others it is one of the worst things about office life.

Some will argue it does not matter, because others will be late too, or because the start of a meeting is often useless. Some will say they are never late, because they chair the meeting and a chair cannot be late. Others will not even notice. At the other end are the people who get annoyed or angry, the ones who go numb after years of battling latecomers, and the ones who copy the behaviour and start being late themselves.

I am a bit agnostic about it. I want to design better meetings. I believe time is our most valuable asset, and that we owe it to ourselves and the people around us to make it time well spent or time well saved. If that means a meeting, so be it. If it means a PowerPoint, so be it. But there are other ways, as the Liberating Structures movement shows.

Being late is also a fairly Western idea. I currently have a meeting planned with my Bedouin friend Faris in Jordan for, literally, “the fourth month”. Something to keep in mind when you work across cultures.

Starting on time.

So let’s say that in your culture, being late is a problem and wasted time. Then there is, in theory, no extra effort in being on time. Being late every time takes the same effort as being on time.

A manager at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines told me he used to be late for everything, until his wife said to him:

Being late means that you value your own time over someone else’s.

Three things help a meeting start on time.

• Add more value. People hardly ever miss their favourite TV show or important moments with their kids. If every meeting is too long, adds nothing and asks nothing of you, you cannot really blame people for turning up late. Meetings that are more than one person presenting slides tend to get better attendance, and people arrive on time.
• Make being on time the culture. A fish rots from the head down. When leaders are late for meetings, the habit spreads through the ranks until it reaches the people who were hired last month. A culture of being on time starts with senior management starting on time, every time.
• Plan meetings differently. Meetings are planned in blocks of 30, 60, 90, 120 or even 180 minutes. That leaves no time to get from one to the next, so people either leave early or arrive late. Plan 25, 50 or 80 minutes instead. People get a short break, arrive on time, and may even reflect on the meeting they just left. Most meetings that fit in 60 minutes also fit in 50.

The opposite is useful too. The CIA once wrote a manual on how to sabotage companies, and much of it is about meetings. Designing the worst possible meeting with your team is a great way to see what to avoid.

When people are late anyway.

Two lines I like:

• “OK, if there are no further questions, I would like to close this meeting.” A tip from a manager at ZLM Verzekeringen, rated the best insurer in the Netherlands ten years in a row.
• “I’m fine, take your time. I’m an external consultant and I charge by the minute, so this is the easiest money I will earn today.” I use this one often.

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First published on 27 March 2020. Clock made with Midjourney.