Does someone need to take minutes in every meeting? That’s a job for a bot, a transcript, and an email. Don’t put someone in charge of writing minutes when they could be contributing so much more to the meeting at hand.
How many times have you shown up to the next meeting with no one having done their follow-ups for the next meeting? Next time it happens, that person gets no follow-ups, delegate to someone else who gets theirs done. If no one is getting follow-ups done, don’t assign them – sounds bad – but if no one’s doing what you need them to, then either you have the wrong roster in the meeting that cares…
When it doesn’t work the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth time. Get up and try again. It’s the only way you’ll make it work, but if you don’t get up the first four times, you’ll never get to the fifth to try it again.
Yourself. Your actions. Your purpose. You can make the best of a bad situation or the worst of a great one. Everything is in your hands in how you approach and how you deal with the situation at hand. That is you can control, that is where you can help people, that is where you can lead.
And carry a pen? Type on a keyboard? Be the first one there? Be the last one out? Wait till the end to ask questions. Whatever it is, just go softly, just be there, and let your actions dictate what sometimes becomes your words. Everything else will fall into place from there.