What to do when appointments are cancelled

- Canceled meetings can be a major distraction in the workplace. Not only do they increase frustration when you show up prepared and the other person doesn't arrive, but they also cause many small attention switches related to rescheduling the meeting. It's more productive to keep most meetings than to reschedule them. So first, make sure you're using best practices when scheduling your meeting. If you haven't yet, watch the video in this course titled how to schedule a meeting, to review those best practices.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as they say. But despite your best efforts, meetings will sometimes fall through, that's just life. If a meeting falls through because of an emergency such as a health problem or an unexpected catastrophe, that's normal and not too big of a concern. We simply need to reschedule. Often I don't worry the first time a meeting is canceled because it's very likely just an isolated incident.

But if it happens more than once, a pattern is developing, and we need to get to the root cause of the pattern. While there are a variety of reasons that lead to multiple meeting cancellations, they can be summarized in two categories. Conflict or commitment. By conflict, I mean that we are trying to schedule a meeting during a time that conflicts with other things, important projects, busier times of the day. Perhaps it's too close to another meeting in their schedule.

By commitment, I mean that the other person does not see the value in the meeting. And because of that, they'll always view something else as a higher priority. If a meeting gets canceled multiple times, take a moment, then talk with the other person to find out why they believe the meeting keeps getting canceled. Many times, people are moving so quickly that they're not even aware of the reason themselves. So give them a chance to explain.

Try a question like, what do you think is causing these meetings to get canceled? They can assess the cause for themselves. If the reason is conflict, ask if there's a better time in their schedule. There should be a time that they can commit to, when they're least likely to be distracted or interrupted. And if the reason is commitment, in your own words, ask if they believe this meeting is a priority. If not, perhaps you two can find an alternative way to communicate.

For instance, people often reach out to ask me for meetings but they're vague about the reason. I am never committed to a meeting like this. So instead I, or my assistant, politely ask them to send a summary of the meeting topic, and the best possible outcome they'd like to achieve. If after doing this, one of us fails to see the importance of having that meeting, having no meeting is always an option.

Appointments are designed to be a two-way street. They should benefit everyone or not be scheduled at all.