5

Start on Time! End on Time!

If you’re not early, you’re late.

—MILITARY EXPRESSION

How many minutes have you spent at the beginning of a meeting, not meeting but waiting for others to show up? How many others were also waiting, and what are you each worth per minute? Do the math. Didn’t you have better things to do?

How many minutes have you spent at the back end of a meeting that is going longer than scheduled and, even worse, going long because one person always has something lengthy to say while another takes everyone down useless tangents? Then you are late for the next meeting you have right after this one, and you become the person whom people are waiting for.

A NEVER-ENDING CYCLE

People tend to resist meetings because so many seem to be a waste of time. For this reason, it is often hard to pull away from whatever else you are doing to go to a meeting. When people wait for latecomers and a meeting does not start on time, it teaches those who came on time a valuable lesson: “Why waste my time by arriving on time?” At the next meeting, they are less likely to show up on time. However, at that next meeting, some of those who showed up late last time do arrive on time, only to wait for the others who are not there. Once again, the meeting begins late and teaches the same lesson to those who might have missed it the first time: “Why come on time and waste my time?” It does not take very long to perpetuate a never-ending cycle.

Being committed to starting and actually ending on time are equally important to keeping a meeting focused. If people know the meeting will start and end on time and they know it is not going to become a black hole that consumes their day, they will be more focused. Everyone is too busy and has too much to do. Respect for one another’s time and the precious resource of group time begins with a commitment to start and end promptly. For that to happen, each agenda item must be thoughtfully and realistically scheduled for the right amount of time to accomplish it.

You must break the cycle and begin a new on-time era. You need to get everyone’s commitment to that concept. You want everyone to hear everyone else make that commitment. Ideally, it happens in person at a face-to-face meeting. However, it also can be done via a group e-mail. If you are in a meeting and you have everyone in the room together, I suggest going around the room and having everyone say, “I commit to coming on time.” If you are making this commitment via e-mail, each person must write that he or she commits and then reply all to the whole group.

What can you do if people do not keep their commitment? There are all kinds of ways to remind people, so let your imagination run wild. I know of many organizations that locked the door at the start of a meeting and did not let anyone else in. You simply missed it, and you weren’t caught up. Another group changed the conference rooms and did not leave a note as to where they went. After latecomers tired of wandering the halls, they made sure they were on time for future meetings. Another group established a fine that collected money for a charitable cause. One team got some unpadded folding steel chairs, and if you were late, that was your seat.

Of course it is possible for people to have valid reasons for being late. They could be coming from another meeting that ran late. They may have been delayed by their boss, a customer, a client, or an emergency. This is certainly allowable and forgivable. What you are trying to eliminate is a standing pattern of chronic lateness that is within an individual’s control.

NO CATCH-UP

To support this end, I suggest that you do not catch up latecomers on what has been discussed. Catching people up perpetuates lateness. It enables latecomers to be participants despite being late.

What if the latecomer is someone higher up in the organization than everyone else at the meeting? Before implementing this process, you need to create buy-in ahead of time so that the process applies to everyone who attends the meeting, including higher-ups.

The process actually enables people to join in and get up to speed quickly without being briefed verbally. You will see how that works in later chapters.

START AT UNUSUAL TIMES

To support starting on time, I highly suggest that you begin the meeting at an unusual time, such as 2:17. I am not kidding. The speed limit on the Sony Pictures lot is 7 miles per hour. The speed limit at the Myrtle Beach airport is 17 miles per hour. Do you think they did a study to determine those ideal numbers? No, those numbers are weird and different, which gets people’s attention.

The strange number will remain in people’s awareness for days, and it will force them to mentally calculate how long it will take them to get from where they are to the meeting location in order to arrive at 2:17. You will probably get a few phone calls or e-mails asking you why the odd time. Just answer, “It’s very important.”

OUTLOOK SABOTAGE AND TRAVEL TIME

A complaint I hear often in my trainings is that because Microsoft Outlook (or whatever software is being used to schedule) defaults to an hour, the end time of one meeting is also the start time of another, which makes it impossible to start on time with everyone there. You must always allow for people’s travel time to the meeting, and starting at odd times helps account for this, such as 10:13.

VIRTUAL MEETINGS

With virtual meetings, I suggest not only having an odd start time but also publishing an arrival time. So in the e-mail you send out, you would say, “Log in by 3:56. We start exactly at 4:02.” I find it absurd that people try to log in right at the start time. Then they’re late because they can’t find the link or they run into connectivity problems. That’s ridiculous. In the physical world, the equivalent of logging in is walking from your desk to the meeting room and possibly taking an elevator along the way, both of which should be done before the meeting starts, so allow for extra time. I find it comical to imagine a face-to-face meeting where everyone tries to run into the room at the exact starting time. They would all get stuck in the doorframe. Specifying an arrival time for a face-to-face meeting is also a good idea.

Everyone has too much to do and only so many minutes in a day and only so many days in a lifetime. We must respect the precious resource of time.

Having a clear agenda and respecting time lays the foundation of success for the goal of focus during the meeting. The more prepared and focused you are, the more effective and efficient the meeting will be.

The Great Clock Countdown

People always used to come late, so we would lose time by starting late or by catching up the two or three chronic latecomers. We decided on a new rule. The start time would be exactly at the top of the hour based only on the clock in the conference room and no other. Once the clock was at 10 seconds before the start time, everyone would do a verbal countdown, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then we would start. And there was absolutely no catching up the latecomers. It was amazing how quickly people started coming on time.

—Chief MD, Pathology and laboratory medicine

Stand Up and Lock the Door

The CEO of the company was ex-Air Force Academy. To keep meetings short and to the point, he would hold stand-up meetings—no chairs. He would also start exactly on time with no exceptions, at which point he would lock the door. One time a senior VP stood locked outside during the whole meeting. It didn’t take long for the whole company to get the message.

—HR director, Manufacturing company

SUMMARY

1.  Break the cycle.

2.  Get everyone’s commitment to time.

3.  Start at unusual times.

4.  Don’t catch up the latecomers.

5.  Allow for travel time.

6.  Specify a log-in time for virtual meetings and an arrival time for face-to-face meetings.