Every Meeting Should Start on Time (if You Want It to Be Productive)

I used to feel this way and when I worked for a very large fortune 500 there were conference rooms where you had to scan your ID to enter. The cost of the meetings were calculated in real time based on who was there and the opportunity costs associated with that. You could see the cost yourself on the wall if you came in 5 minutes late. However, my perspective changed radically once I started to manage a global team with some members in Germany and some in Latin America.

The Germans I worked with tended to be very punctual and to view being 5 minutes early as bordering on being insultingly late. Their perspective was start on time and finish on time at all cost. Running late might mean being late for your next meeting and that would be insulting even if we were on the verge of a major break through. If time expired, then it expired and we could schedule a new meeting to pick up where we left off.

The folks from Latin America on the other hand felt little need to start on time and felt it was no offense whatsoever to do so. They also felt no remorse for going overtime. If a meeting was productive then it was productive and interrupting the flow of a meeting on the verge of a major break through just because time had expired was insulting to everyone who had participated. Everyone in the next meeting would know that you had something productive come up and would excuse you for being late.

Having managed both, I see merits both ways. Management of cultural expectations was more important than management of the clock either for the Europeans or the Latin Americans.