In High Output Management, published in 1983, Intel’s Andy Grove wrote: “A meeting is nothing less than the medium through which managerial work is performed.” He divided meetings into two kinds. In a process-oriented meeting, “knowledge is shared and information is exchanged.” A mission-oriented meeting is held when needed and “is designed to produce a specific output, frequently a decision.”
Grove made the chairman responsible for the second kind. The chairman “must have a clear understanding of the meeting’s objective.” Grove also wrote: “When a mission-oriented meeting fails to accomplish the purpose for which it was called, the blame belongs to the chairman.”