We’ve all been there. A meeting is scheduled to start at 10:00, so you arrive coffee in hand. Not everyone is there yet, though, so you chit chat with others and scroll through your emails. You get a text from the meeting leader that he’s running a few minutes late. One by one, latecomers rush through the door, apologizing that their previous meetings ran over. By around 10:15, the meeting gets started. Things start out on topic but keep veering off or being hashed out for way too long. Given the late start and the remaining agenda items, the scheduled end time of 11:00 is passed by without any acknowledgement. You’ll now be late for your next meeting, so you pull out your phone and send an email pushing it back, deeply annoyed at the ongoing discussions and how off track the rest of your day will be.
You aren’t alone in your despair. According to one survey, over 50% of employees report they waste 1-5 hours each week on meetings and calls that aren’t productive. Now certainly, one aspect that determines whether a meeting is productive and worth your time is the content of the meeting itself – making sure it covers the right topics and includes the right people. While that’s important, I think there’s another really important element that’s often overlooked.
Start and end meetings on time.
It sounds so simple yet can somehow be so hard to do. We get caught up working on other tasks beforehand and run late. It’s hard to keep discussions on topic. Perhaps we underestimate the amount of time we actually need to get through the agenda, which can be an especially common reason. I like to tell myself something will take 5 minutes, but the truth is, it rarely does.
The hard truth is that, when we don’t treat meeting start and end times as commitments to uphold, our actions communicate that our time is more valuable than anyone else’s. That our agenda is more important. That our problem, or our issue, or our question, or our to-do list, or our own commitments are more important.
We could easily talk about the productivity impact of this, but that can cause us to forget the people impact. When meetings start late and end late, it damages employee engagement and can lead to resentment and a desire to just work alone. If not improved, it can have long-term effects of creating cultures of selfishness and disrespect. This may sound over-the-top, but remember that when you ask others to meet, you’re asking them to commit their time to you. In turn, you should be committing to them. Otherwise, you communicate that your needs are more important than theirs.
Interestingly, not honoring meeting times can also lead to other attendance issues. I’ve seen leaders who were always late to meetings but then expected their employees to arrive to work on time. They didn’t understand that they were sending contradictory messages.
Next time you’re leading a meeting, whether it’s with 2 people or 20, be committed to starting and ending the meeting on time. This habit may not come easily at first, but the more you do it, the more natural it will feel. You’ll find that this enables you (and those around you) to spend more time on what’s truly important. There are some practices that may help, such as being realistic about how much time is needed, always providing an agenda and sticking to it, and leaving some time between meetings on your calendar (if you have a meeting that ends at 10:00 and another that starts at 10:00, you can’t be in both places at once). While these practices are good, the foundational key is to be committed to doing this. Without commitment to time, these practices won’t do any good. With commitment, however, they’ll help you succeed.
If you’re in a leadership role, this will demonstrate commitment and respect to those in the room, especially if they’re your employees. If you aren’t in a leadership role, consider this an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to be a great leader. Colleagues may start preferring to work with you and meet with you since they know you’re reliable.
Despite your commitment, remember that life will happen. You will run late sometimes, and meetings will need to run over sometimes. The key is to make this an exception, explain what happened, and apologize for it. If you realize a meeting might need to run over, ask others if they can stay or if another meeting needs to be scheduled. If you do this, others will understand.
Now, we’ll wrap this up so you can get to your next meeting…on time!
Photo credit: By Cathy Yeulet / Canva
This was very convicting. I find myself always running late to meetings and hoping people will be understanding. However, if a meeting I’m attending goes past the initial end time, I get very upset. I can’t have it both ways. This was the wake up call I needed to be better about arriving on time and in doing so, showing others’ respect.
I struggle with the same thing! I’m often trying to get one more thing done and then end up running late. So, I’ve been working on this too. The nice thing is I find that I’m less stressed as well since I’m no longer stressed about being late! You’ve got this!