We have a culture where meetings always start five minutes late, and this bad habit has crept into our weekly Level 10 Meeting™, disrupting the segue and throwing off our tight ninety-minute timeline. How do we enforce the "start on time" rule when the violators are key members of our leadership team?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Starting your Level 10 Meeting™ even a few minutes late is a direct violation of the same day, same time, same agenda rule. When leaders stroll into the room five minutes late, they are sending a clear message to the rest of the team: my time is more valuable than yours. This behavior destroys the discipline of your weekly pulse and ruins the transition of your segue.

To fix this culture of lateness, you must establish a strict start-on-time rule. A Level 10 Meeting™ starts exactly at the designated minute, whether everyone is in their seat or not. If the meeting is scheduled for nine o'clock, the facilitator must start the segue at nine o'clock sharp, even if only two people are in the room.

Do not wait for latecomers, and do not repeat information when they finally arrive. Let them experience the awkwardness of walking into a meeting that is already underway. If a leader is late, their lack of punctuality should be treated as an issue and dropped straight to the Issues List for a frank IDS® discussion.

Hold the line on this standard. If your leadership team cannot master the simple discipline of showing up on time once a week, you cannot expect your front-line managers or employees to respect any other rules in your organization. Punctuality is the foundation of accountability.