"We'll wait a few more minutes for the late-comers to arrive."  Who hasn't felt insulted by that remark at the outset of a meeting?  If you're holding a teleconference, people have made efforts to connect at the appropriate time—no matter what time zone they may be in—and they deserve to be rewarded, not punished, for their punctuality.

    On the other hand, if you've got people participating from other cultures, where punctuality is not highly valued, you may have to make some allowances.  However, when you look at the total cost for an hour's teleconference, and add another 50% to accommodate the effects of latecomers, you may have to instill the sense of importance that prevails in industrialized countries.  Is it any accident that punctuality and economic health seem to be closely tied?

    It's our belief that we show respect for people who've made the effort to be on time by fulfilling our promise (see "Promises:  Roots of Business," pages i-iv, , August, 2002) to start at the appointed hour.  When we insist on waiting for latecomers, we send the message that they're more important, and that people who show up on time are expected to waste their time.

    Some people try to be important by being habitually late.  You can send the message to them that they're not that important by starting on time.

    Always notify teleconference (or other medium) participants of the official start time at the top of the invitation, and note that same time with the first agenda item.

    If you've not yet established that punctuality is the norm, remind people that you'll be starting on time in your invitation.

    When the time comes, convene the meeting and start down the agenda...even if you're the only party present.  When others arrive, they'll get the message that punctuality is important.

    If you really want to punish latecomers, make sure your first agenda item is the assignment of undesirable tasks and duties.  You can then assign them to people who aren't in the room.  But, if you do that, be absolutely sure you communicate that assignment in the post-meeting minutes, and follow-up to make sure the required work gets done.

    Don't break a meeting flow to welcome late-comers.  You don't know—until you ask (perhaps at a scheduled break)—whether their tardiness was intentional or accidental.  Getting caught in traffic is not an excuse, nor is poor scheduling; responding to an important customer, or taking a child to the Emergency Room certainly is.  Let's keep our priorities straight.

    When a late-comer tries to interrupt the meeting to recover information conveyed before they arrived, gently refer them to others to get that information at a later time.  I frequently suggest the late-comer get the information from another participant at the next break...or wait for the meeting minutes to be published.  By letting them "live in the dark" while others swirl past them with discussions, they'll get an additional message that next time they'd better plan to participate from the posted start time.

    Recently, we've been facilitating a series of meetings among total strangers.  At each meeting, about 50% of the people have been to one of our prior meetings.  Because we started the first meeting exactly on-time, by the second meeting, 80% of the people were present and ready by the appointed hour—amazingly, many of those were first-timers.  That's held steady for four meetings, and the time of the latest arrival is steadily advancing toward the published start time.

    People appreciate that we respect their time without catering to people who arrive late.  Because we behave with integrity, we've got consistent participation from a broad group of volunteers.