> In others, clarity comes from making the point and assuming above average intelligence of the readers to know that context is always relevant.

It's not cool to insult the readers' intelligence when someone makes a shaky overly broad claim. Better to retract or modify the claim. The headline "Meetings are forcing functions" is borderline clickbait. Most of us here have been in companies that meeting'd themselves to death, or at minimum, underachieved. And those companies had scheduled meetings too, so beware success bias and survivorship bias. My key positive message to OP is to emphasize cultural signs of accountability (or lack of), without which everything else (like standups and progress reports) is out the window. For example, how many of you have ever seen someone organizationally punished for accurately reporting status in a meeting?