The Fundamental Theorem of Meetings

Wisdom + Wisdom = More Wisdom

Remember the difference between theorems and postulates? Postulates you don't have to prove and theorems you do. But sometimes people who run meetings forget that there's no assurance that bringing a bunch of smart people together is going to garner anything more than chaos. The Wisdom of Crowds can be useful when the goal is to develop standards, but is a path to mediocrity in other cases.

The Fundamental Postulate of Meetings is the same as for any other activity. Without clear objectives and leadership, meetings are a waste of time. 

That's one of the values of sports in education. In sports, the objectives are clear and leaderless teams usually lose. In other activities, the outcomes are less clear unless the leader has set and communicated what the goals are. So it's much easier to fool yourself into thinking that you're getting somewhere when you're actually sitting still.