Why being late is NEVER an option

There are absolutely no reasons to be late, None! That is a bold statement, uncomfortable, but it's true.

Have you ever seen The Daily News start 5 minutes late? Of course not!

Why is that? Well, the anchor of the TV program will show up 3 to 5 hours before the activity to prepare. That is why you will never see him show up 5 minutes late on the show, apologizing and giving an excuse why he's late.

That's why if you arere the person on time, waiting for the other party, you may feel frustration, irritation that the other person's not there because they are no excuses to be late.

I started my career as a professional jazz dancer, and you had to show up hours before the show. I then had the opportunity to be the mascot for the Montreal expo's in my early 20's, and I remember very vividly that the game ALWAYS started at 7h35 PM…not a minute late. And I had to be there 2 hours before the match…or I was considered late. My previous experience helped me a lot to develop this habit. I was 100% on time for two years in a row, without exceptions. 

This mindset is not natural for me, far from it. (I'll explain later)

In my career, I've had many colleagues, customers or suppliers showing up late in various situations, always with a good excuse: traffic, family, etc.

So why being late would be OK for them? Why would it be different for a team meeting, a customer presentation or an appointment with one of your staff members? I can clearly see a huge difference as I spend time in various companies. Some will tolerate being late much more than others.

I've always had a hard time understanding why I could schedule a simple activity (like a LASER QUEST run with my kid), and they respect the schedule 100% and then schedule an appointment with a family doctor who will let me wait 2 hours in the waiting room?

The answer is obvious: people don't care enough to plan and have their schedules organized properly.

Let's examine the potential reasons why someone is late and see how you can either improved your own punctuality or offer you tools to coach someone in your team, a family member or even your spouse to transform their relationship with TIME.

Now, I don't want you to get my message and pretend that only perfection is acceptable…far from it. 

I had moments in my life where I was consistently late in certain areas. For example, for years, every single family gathering, I was showing up 30 to 60 minutes late. I did that until I realized how much it affected them. I had developed a reputation with them to be always late and the last person showing up in the events.

 Why? 

I didn't think that punctuality was as important in this situation: they are my family, they can wait a few minutes. 

But it affected them a lot more than I could imagine. I've changed that in that past few years and apply the same importance for our family activities than my business.

On the professional level, in the last 13 years of leading over 1000 training activities, I've been late only ten times… that's being on-time 99% on time. It's not perfect, but fairly close.

I say to my trainers that if you DO NOT show up 30 minutes before your training, you are late if a customer has to call to verify 10 minutes before a training why you're still not there: your late. 

A famous football coach called Lombardi explained that if you are ready to start your practice 15 minutes before the scheduled time, you are late. People call it the Lombardi TIME… (read more on this article)

The idea here is not to have perfection, but it's more about realizing that this frame of mind is the foundation of your own integrity with people you work with. That will trickle down to anything you do in life.

You need to organize your schedule around your commitments so that you are a person that has a reputation that you show up on time. That will set the stage for all your relationships. 

When I lead a class, a lot of people arrive 5, 10 or even 20 minutes late in a course. If I ask them how often it happens, they will acknowledge that this happens for 20 or even 30% of all appointments they have, sometimes even more!

Let's examine why that usually happens to people and how to handle this if you want to get better. 

If your reputation and integrity are important to you, let's see how you can change the relationship you have with time.

1. BEING TOO OPTIMISTIC

One of the most important reason, people are late is being too optimistic. People organize their schedule, book a sequence of appointments assuming that everything is going to go perfectly well. 

 Assume that all the meetings they book will finish on time, that they won't get an urgent call to deal with between meeting, that there won't be additional traffic or any possible unplanned events. They don't even think they'll need to get a bathroom break. 

 A huge problem because the next meeting that you are attending people are seeing you being late as a lack of respect. And they might be right. 

 If you really want to show up on time for a meeting, that's really up to you. NO EXCUSE ! 

 Be present to your own schedule and be someone who is a person of his word! It will make a long way in all your relationships.

2. ACTUALLY, not caring enough (for real)

You may just not care about that meeting or appointment in question. That's common. You pretend it is but not showing up late expresses otherwise. People are not dumb. If something's important, your there on time. 

That's why being late will create bad feelings for people around you. They may not say it to your face, but they will definitely feel it in their heart. It may have a bigger impact than you think. 

If you are a leader in your organization, that's fatal to your reputation and how this will replicate to everyone. If you are punctual 80% of the time, your team will be late 50% of the time. If you never show up on time, this will be the case for your team as well. It will spread like a virus in your entire organization.

I've worked with hundreds of organization in the last 13 years, and when a president or senior executive show up 20 minutes late to our training session, it dramatically affects the dynamic of the training. 

People don't care as much for the training; the signal you send is this session is not THAT important. 

Think about that, if a trainer gives a session for ten participants for 3 hours, not only you pay for that trainer to show up, but you will pay 10 x 50 to 150$ / hour per person + the room, material and logistic. : that means this training will cost potentially up to 5 000$ for that session. 

Don't you think that this deserves showing up in advance?

3. Lack of a good calendar system

 A simple reason why many are late is that they don't carry a good calendar system with them. That could be a paper-based agenda or using Google calendar or Outlook as long as you learn how to master it. 

They may rely on their memory to remember a meeting. That's dangerous. And it limits your ability to manage more than a project at a time or multiple commitments.

 As a parent, you may be able to manage the schedule of your child, but that will become extremely difficult when you have three kids; believe me! 

 Pretty basic reason and very simple to resolve: GET a calendar and stick with it.

 Use alarms wisely so that you noticed when to get to your next appointment, including travelling time, breaks and other activities you can expect you'll have to do.

4. Lack of planning and time management

When I start my time management courses, I have up to 90% of participants that NEVER got a time management training in their whole career. That's always a surprise for me. 

Time is your most precious resource. It really is!

Talk to anyone who is successful in any field of expertise; their time is the #1 focus and priority. 

You can always win back money you lost, you can always hire new staff or equipment, but you cannot recuperate the time lost. 

Managing your time will give you a better understanding of where your time is going and reduce the possibility of being late.

Time management will help you prioritize what's important and say NO to meetings that are not 100% in line with your objectives, therefore reducing the risk of being late you're the real important stuff.

And this is an ability that can be learned and develop. It's a skill that can transform your life powerfully.

In my next article, I'll explain what to do when you're late, even if you everything in your power to be on time and how you can restore your integrity with the person (or group) you are late with, and most importantly, what you can do to avoid being late in the first place! 

Thank you for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did write it!

Share with your team members; you will see an impact instantly if you apply these concepts!

Photo 2 by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Photo 3 by Harry Sandhu on Unsplash