We have all been there; sitting through minutes and hours – which seem like years – of time wasted in meetings, where the point of them has been…..well to put it politely, ‘difficult to discern’.

Yesterday, I attended 5 separate meetings. I ended two of them early, as we had accomplished all that needed to be said. Unfortunately, one session, ironically sprinkled with reps from leading areas of Israel’s commerce, left me bewildered. Why, after all these years, do people still not know how to behave in meetings so that they are efficient, effective and even fun.

It is some years since the British comedian, John Cleese, issued a series of videos, using humour to illustrate the problems of modern management. From a more sober angle, a blog on the Harvard Business Review this week argued “Yes, you can make meetings more productive.” Steve Jobs was renowned for ensuring that participants were reduced to a bare minimum.

For me, there are three key factors for ensuring that a meeting has great purpose.

First, the chairperson has to issue a firm agenda, preferably circulating it in advance

Second, participants must know what they want to obtain from the discussions. The contra of this is that the chairperson is left to do 90% of the talking and thus the meeting turns into a dialogue. Creativity is stifled.

Third, arguably the most important factor, time limits are critical. The chairperson should ensure that the meeting starts on time and that the meeting finishes by an hour agreed in advance. Otherwise, participants will know that they can arrive late  – in Israel this is know as “Jerusalem Mean Time” – and leave whenever they want to.

So,  why do we not learn? Why do we continue to waste countless minutes in our fast-paced lives in rooms filled with hot air?