Having an agenda and a moderator is not enough. What meetings also need is:

1. Context: Why are we here? What's the problem we're solving?

2. Actions: What decisions did we make? What are the next steps?

3. Follow-up: Who's doing what and by when?

Put this in a shared doc, a wiki, anywhere people can find it. If you can't see it, you can track it and you can't measure the outcome.

Just like developers measure the outcome of their planning and project meetings every sprint, managers and execs should do the same.

In theory, two things will happen once outcomes are tracked: Some managers will realise their meetings produce nothing useful, so they'll send fewer invites. And the company will shift focus from output to outcomes, which means fewer meetings and more real work getting done.

In practice, it depends on who you hire. People with less knowledge, experience, or agency tend to rely on meetings more than others.