Best: Decisions don't get made in meetings. Tailor your communication to your audience. Be diligent and ethically consistent and people will respect you for it.
The actual decisions have been made in the days, weeks, sometimes months leading up to the meeting. And the amount of human input going into them can vary from very little to gargantuan.
I believe there is even a saying that before an important meeting takes place the people required to attend it will hold one or more unofficial meetings to make up their minds about the topics on the important agenda.
I find the definition of a decision as "the irrevocable commitment of resources" to be very useful. Plans may be made in advance of a meeting but until resources are committed and behavior/processes changes there may be a pronouncement but no decision.
In general, decisions that actually stick--where multiple points of view are explored in real time--only get made in meetings. Announcing a decision in an email without a conversation rarely works out well unless there has been a thorough discussion with those affected and those who may have relevant knowledge or expertise.
However, if you set up meetings in a way that decisions can be made (i.e. prepare a design document with several options and make the meeting about choosing which one) you will find that meetings can be very productive.
The actual decisions have been made in the days, weeks, sometimes months leading up to the meeting. And the amount of human input going into them can vary from very little to gargantuan.
I believe there is even a saying that before an important meeting takes place the people required to attend it will hold one or more unofficial meetings to make up their minds about the topics on the important agenda.