In this commentary for the New York Times, University of Chicago professor Reid Hastie contends that "every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones." Hastie says part of the problem is that the leader has not set clear objectives or an agenda, and didn't assign pre-meeting preparation tasks. "Instead, the leader seems to hope that magic will occur, producing a serendipitous solution to some of the problems addressed," Hastie says.