When I start with clients, they often arrive late to our meetings. It’s common when we first start. I often ask why they do it. There are understandable excuses of “a client meeting ran over” or “there was traffic.” But interestingly I have found that people that show up late to my meetings will respond that they often show up late to ALL meetings.
They made an appointment for a certain time and yet they never show up on that time.
Your word matters
When you make an appointment, you are setting an agreement. If you show up 10 minutes late, this means that your word doesn’t reflect your actions. You are implicitly saying that you can’t manage your life in a way to live up to your commitments. What you said isn’t what you did. This means that other things you say in that meeting or elsewhere may not be truthful. The level of trust people have of you has been eroded.
The way you do one thing is the way you do everything
By showing up late you’ve established that you don’t live up to your word, in your meetings if you say you’re going to get something done, should people interpret that you’ll get just part of it done just like you only sort of made it to the meeting on time?
People know that other people live by habits. If you’re crazy in one area, you’re likely crazy in other areas.
It’s disrespectful and counterproductive
For every meeting there is an agreement with another person to show up at a certain time. Your counterpart has stopped what they are doing to work on this task with you. You’ve made a commitment. If you do not show up on time, they can't start the meeting, but they can't leave because they don't know if you will show up in the next minute or not. Every minute you are away from work is a minute of productivity that you have stolen from them.
It's not just disrespectful, but it is counterproductive for the company. It doesn't matter if they are a customer, an investor, or a new potential hire. You are casting a negative light on your company. If they report to you, they will keep quiet about it, but they will resent you. Nobody wins when you waste someone's time.
It’s Sloppy or Demeaning or both
When late, the people waiting for you have 3 conclusions that they can draw:
Life happens. Traffic happens. Weather happens. Emergencies happen. Nobody's perfect and you don't have to be. What you do have to be is conscientious to let other members of the meeting know that you will be late as soon as you realize and know that you will be.