Twenty percent of the participants arrive late to the weekly meeting you lead.
What do I recommend you do?
It depends.
Do you arrive late? If you do, I recommend that you change your behavior. Participants respond to leadership cues. You are enabling participants to excuse their behavior when you demonstrate the meeting isn’t important enough for you to be in the room before the scheduled start time.
If you are leading the meeting for a group, start the meeting on schedule regardless of whether you are the only person in the room. I am assuming you sent out a meeting notice with an agenda. Work through the agenda. Don’t backtrack when the late participants arrive regardless of rank. Your actions will send a stronger message than your words ever could.
If you are leading a meeting for a team, I suggest a different strategy than with a group.
A team produces its results through regular interaction with its members. It’s impossible to work as a team unless the members are in the room. Groups, on the other hand, rarely require the participation of all of its members. A group is working as a collection of individuals rather than a team. See my blog entry What Type of Team Are You Managing?
If you are leading the meeting but aren’t the leader of the team, make the situation clear and let the team decide what it wants to do. See my blog entry Waiting for People Who Arrive Late.
If you are the leader of the team and you lead the meeting, does starting late reflect your preference? You can do something about the problem. Consider the idea I propose in my blog entry Fine Team Rather Than Individual?.
If you need help with improving the results of your team or group meetings, I can help. Contact me.
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