The alternative is to teach people how to run meetings more efficiently (and how to take part in them). A little bit of training and some intra-company consistency on how and where to report status, how to queue up speakers, etc., goes a _long_ way. Literally dozens of former students have told me it's the most useful thing they learned from me, and it pays life-long dividends. Here's my take in 30 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtewOjRy-1U