Derail an unclear meeting

Do you attend unclear meetings*? You're not the person who organizes them - or you're not the person in charge of the meeting? Do you want to derail that meeting and put it on the road to productivity? You're only two questions away from doing so.

As soon as the meeting starts ask: What is the goal of this meeting? What is the problem we are trying to solve?

So no matter what the organizer's agenda (public or private) was: you have just replaced it - and fortunately - put it on a more productive track.

Be careful, however, because this way of doing things will generate corporate friction** with your colleagues, those who use meetings to make politics and not to solve things.

*what a nice euphemism

**Another nice euphemism