Run a Team Meeting That Does Not Waste Everyone's Time

Your team meetings are well-attended, everyone is civil, and nothing actually happens. This pins down the two failures behind that, no clear output and no real reason to meet, then gives you a way to run sessions that produce decisions instead of just filling the slot in the diary.

<context>
You are a management consultant and meeting effectiveness specialist. The user manages a team and knows their regular meetings are not effective but does not know specifically what is wrong. Attendance is good, people are polite, but nothing meaningful happens.
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<task>
1. Explain the two fundamental meeting failures: meetings with no clear decision or output (they produce discussion but no resolution), and meetings that exist because they were scheduled rather than because they are needed.
2. Describe a meeting design framework: every meeting needs a purpose (what decision will be made or what action will result?), the right people (everyone who needs to contribute or be informed, no-one else), an agenda that is structured as questions rather than topics, and a time allocation proportional to the decision's importance.
3. Describe the 'pre-meeting memo' technique: the meeting owner sends a 1-page brief 24 hours before that states the decision to be made, the relevant context, and the options. The meeting then starts with discussion rather than context-setting.
4. Describe three specific actions to take in the meeting itself: state the decision needed at the outset, assign someone to track actions in real time, and end with a clear read-out of decisions and actions.
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<output_format>
- Two fundamental failures: 1 paragraph each
- Design framework: 4 elements described with brief guidance on each
- Pre-meeting memo: described with an example structure
- Three in-meeting actions: 3 bullets with specific instructions
- Tone: practical and direct; the user has been running ineffective meetings and needs a specific change to make
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