How to Stop Late Arrivals
the Lazy Facilitator Episode 13
Late arrivals. Every facilitator, trainer and group leader deals with this. People trickle in 5, 10 or 15 minutes late, and you’re stuck waiting.
Or, you start without them and have to catch them up later. Either way, it kills your momentum and wastes everyone’s time.
And here’s what most of us do. We accept it. People are busy. Traffic happens. Bad time management.
But here’s the real issue…
We haven’t given them an incentive to show up on time.
And this is a lesson I learned the hard way while lecturing at a university for 7 years. And it’s a mission-critical principle that works in any group setting.
An Illustration
Every single one of my classes started with what I call an unofficial start. A fun game, a puzzle, a story, a video. Something fun and engaging the moment people walked in.
The result? Over the course of 7 years, or 14 semesters, teaching 2 subjects, I rarely had a late student after the fifth week of the semester. Why? FOMO. The fear of missing out.
The students didn’t want to miss what was happening at the start of my classes because everyone else was clearly enjoying it. Word spread fast.
Now, I didn’t lecture about punctuality. I didn’t penalise lateness. I just made showing up on time more valuable than showing up late.
This concept of the unofficial start works in corporate training, team sessions, conferences, you name it.
Original post February 2026, last updated April 2026.