In this leadership monologue, Cameron Herold argues that punctuality is a tangible expression of a company’s core values and a critical driver of culture. He shares personal anecdotes—coaching a CEO who habitually logged into Zoom a minute early to test his own timeliness, and the 1‑800‑GOT‑JUNK daily 7‑minute stand‑up huddle that has persisted for 25 years—to illustrate how small, repeatable rituals reinforce respect, accountability, and operational discipline. Herold proposes a concrete practice: schedule meetings to end five minutes before the official end time, creating a buffer that allows participants to transition smoothly to the next commitment. By consistently arriving early and ending meetings early, leaders signal that time is valued, set a cultural tone that reverberates throughout the organization, and ultimately improve execution, employee morale, and deal‑making.
Chapters
I have a CEO that I coached for about two years, and every single call he would be on Zoom one or two minutes early just to see if I was going to show up late. And I'm the worst, because if I show up late, then I'm like, I'm an asshole. I think people, especially CEOs, they want core values, but they're so in their own head that they forget that breaking a core value sends out this reverberation that nothing matters. Every meeting has to stop five minutes prior to the scheduled ending time. So if you set a meeting from 8 o' clock till 9 o', clock, finish the meeting at 7:50 so you have time to walk down the hall, talk to your assistant, go to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee and sit down and start the next call on time. It just really shows a massive amount of respect and living your core values throughout the organization. And that includes for the CEO, right? Nobody gets a hall pass. Nobody gets to show up saying, sorry I'm late. What they're really saying is, f you, I'm disrespectful and my time's more valuable. So I create this mantra of if you're not five minutes early, you're late. I actually created a cartoon years ago, and it's this swimmer running out onto the swimming deck at a race. He's kind of an Olympic swimmer. And all the other swimmers are standing on the starting blocks and they're ready to dive. And the gun's going off and the swimmer's running out going, sorry, I'm late. It's too bad, dude, the race is already starting. So, you know, no Olympian, no athlete would ever show up late for a race. So the only way you can show up on time is, is to give people that built in buffer by finishing every phone call and finishing every meeting early. So I tell suppliers, I tell customers when we start the meeting, by the way, I know we have this booked for 30 minutes. We stop everything five minutes early so we can show up on time. They're like, wow, that's amazing. Like, nobody ever gives a. Like you do. So it sets this cultural kind of foundation of core values which reverberates. You just land deals, you land employees, and people just feel better. I have a CEO that I coached for about two years, and every single call he would be on Zoom one or two minutes early just to see if I was going to show up late. And I'm the worst. Cause if I show up late, then I'm like, I'm an asshole. Like Wow. I really. Or I just got really distracted with like, I'll just do this one last thing. But 1-800-got drunk. We had a daily huddle every day. They still do it 25 years later, but every day, every single employee would stop what they were doing and they would walk down to this huddle area. We would have this huddle, this daily 7 minute stand up, and at 10:53, everyone's computer would go off with an alarm. So people would stop, they'd stop. Their phone call, an interview would stop, didn't matter. And they would walk down to huddle, which started at 1055. So the fact that everyone's alarm went off meant everybody just stood up and went to huddle. The first person that got to huddle would be the huddle master for that day, and they would lead huddle for the day. There was a digital readout board and at 11:02 Hudd seven minute meeting. That was just a really powerful system. But when you can run a meeting like that every single day with all employees, you know, to the minute, it just creates this kind of pulse of we deliver what we promise, we respect the individual, we have pride in all we do, we can get shit done, you know, with less people, faster. Those cultural norms become foundational building blocks for a company. And I think people, especially CEOs, they want core values, but. But they're so in their own head that they forget that breaking a core value sends out this reverberation that nothing matters, the wrong signal to send.
