You know, there are a lot of things I hated about working at Amazon/AWS. But one thing that worked really well for me was how they handled meetings.
First off, you have to have an agenda. And the agenda has to point to a document that lays out all the things you’re going to talk about. Depending on the nature of the meeting and what you are there to discuss, that might be a simple “one pager” or a more in-depth “two pager”, or a very in-depth “six pager”. But the expectation is that everyone will sit there at the beginning of the meeting and read through the document. If you want to read it in advance, you can do that. But the expectation is that everyone will read it for the first time at the meeting.
Once you’ve all read the document, then you can discuss it.
This method addresses both ends of the “this could have been an e-mail” spectrum. But it requires a lot of rigor, and you have to get good at writing proper documents. Otherwise, you’re going to get destroyed at every meeting where you are the person writing the document. Fortunately, they have a lot of examples you can crib from, so you can get good at this quickly.
They also delegate a lot of responsibility for making decisions to the edge. You can ask around to see if a meeting needs to be held on certain subjects, and the answer is usually “no”. You can make the decision yourself and justify it, and document that justification. Then you move on.
If you’re having a disagreement with someone on a topic, you really need to work hard to come to a consensus or agreement with the other person on that subject. You don’t want to have to write a document and have a meeting with a senior person, and then have them ask “why the fuck didn’t you two guys settle this yourselves instead of bringing this problem to me?” Bring solutions, not problems.
Or, if you have a problem that really is insurmountable, then at least bring along a couple of potential solutions or paths towards potential solutions, and then the meeting becomes a discussion of which path to which solution will be chosen and why.