Starting Meetings on Time

We've all experienced problems with starting meetings on time. Consider this passage from one of my favorite facilitation books, How to Make Meetings Work:

The only way meetings are going to start on time is by starting them on time. Waiting five minutes at one meeting will lead to a ten-minute delay the next. And pretty soon everybody will be timing their arrival according to their personal estimates of when the meeting really will begin. If you start meetings on time, people will get the idea that when you say ten-thirty, you mean ten-thirty and not ten-forty-five. (If it's ten-thirty and only a few people have arrived, let them decide when to begin the meeting. Maybe they will think it's a waste of time to begin before certain other members are present.)

The book also describes some specific approaches to dealing with latecomers.

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