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Show Up Ready to Work
Seems simple. If You have a meeting at 9:00 am, as long as you are in the room or on the call at 9:00 am sharp, you are good to go.
Right?
Wrong.
Just because you are on time, doesn’t mean you are prepared.
This Service Pillar is perfectly demonstrated with an anecdote from Shawn Slavin:
“Growing up, my dad, who was in the Army for 21 years, had a mantra: “If you’re ‘on time,’ then you’re late!” He felt that it is important to arrive at an appointment 15 minutes early. When asked why, he explained this provides him time to find where he is supposed to be, get set up, organize his thoughts, and prepare himself to focus on the topic at hand.
Being honest, at 7, I just thought he was being grumpy. Later, in my teenage and college years, I thought it intrusive and wasteful of MY time. It wasn’t until I moved into the workforce and began working in teams, I learned to not only understand but to appreciate his message.”
Have you ever thought about what it means to be late for something?
If you are 10 minutes late for a meeting with four other colleges, you are responsible for wasting nearly a full man-hour of productivity. If you are the leader of that meeting, it will probably take another 5 to 10 minutes for you to get settled, get your technology connected, and get things rolling. That’s almost 2 combined hours of wasted productivity, all because one person is running behind.
So, next time you have to be somewhere, before you try to take care of the “one last thing,” make sure you are prioritizing the time of the people you are meeting with.
