How to start meetings on time

One of life's greatest annoyances for me is the time spent waiting for a meeting to begin. The Berkun blog gives some great advice about how to get meetings off on a good foot by starting on time. What tips can you share with the group about how you get your meetings started on time? Advertising

Read Next

10 Small Changes To Make Your House Feel Like A Home

What Makes People Happy? 20 Secrets of “Always Happy” People

How to Sharpen Your Transferable Skills For a Swift Career Switch

If you called the meeting, do your %*?@?! job. Everyone claims they know about facilitation, but few do it. If you called the meeting, it's your job to 1) get there on time 2) write a bullet list agenda on the wall 3) Manage the conversation so no one hogs the floor and the right people get a voice at the right time 4) make sure side issues get delegated out of the room. If you don't do all 4, any meeting problems are your fault.

Meetings start when royalty arrives. Watch the behavior of the senior person on a team. Most meetings won't start until they arrive and people know it. If the VP is never late, no one else will be either. If the VP is always 10 minutes behind, everyone else will follow. If you're a team manager, and meetings always start late, know (and blame) thyself. If you need a VP/VIP know where they'll be before your meeting and escort them yourself.

Someone must enforce the clock. Every meeting should start with someone assigned to watch the clock. I don't know that you need a giant clock like Google is claimed to use, but it's someones job to say “We're 20 minutes in”, “we have 15 minutes left”, “we have 5 minutes, so lets wrap up”. You'd be amazed how many meetings ramble for half the allotted time on topics not central to the reason for the meeting. Three breakpoints are all you need to remind everyone to stay on track.

Plan to end 5 minutes early. It's insane but in all our infinite wisdom we continually plan meetings back to back with zero alloted time to get from meeting A to meeting B. Whose idea was this? If you always go to the last second, or go over, guess what you're doing? You're screwing over the next batch of meetings people need to get to. You'll make unexpected friends by always ending early, which is easy if you watch the clock.

How to start meetings on time (the honest version) - [Berkun Blog] Advertising