This is good advice. Maybe slightly dangerous to the less people-minded among us, who are prone to take it as "prepare a pile of documentation" when nobody want

This is good advice. Maybe slightly dangerous to the less people-minded among us, who are prone to take it as "prepare a pile of documentation" when nobody wants such a pile. So I'd tweak the advice a bit: when preparing for a meeting, do homework on the other participants first, try to empathize with what they want and would accept. Then, depending on that, do the material homework - reading, writing, etc. It works like magic.