Meetings consume an enormous share of working time — roughly a third of a middle manager’s week and up to half of senior leaders’ — yet most executives judge the majority of them a poor use of time. Wendy Tan reframes the problem: meetings are not merely where work is coordinated; they are where a team’s culture is enacted in real time. Whatever an organisation claims to value — teamwork, excellence, innovation — either shows up in how people actually meet, or it doesn’t.
She illustrates with a BP China sales team whose director, Masan, wanted the group to rise above its default way of working. The team had created and signed a charter of values, but day-to-day meetings stayed narrowly fixed on targets, treating the ‘soft’ cultural elements as separate from hard performance. The question that drove the work: how do you integrate mindset and business performance in the same conversation?
Her answer is the 4Cs, a framework that structures a meeting to hold opposing-but-complementary polarities at once — task and relationship, action and reflection, speed and depth, divergence and convergence, performance and culture.
Connect — open with a brief, genuine check-in (what’s on your mind, what’s going well, how are you feeling), because connection comes before content and the quality of relationships sets the quality of the conversation. Content — before rushing to action items, name the possibility the team wants to create together; without that, the actions generated only reproduce the past. The team also learns to tolerate ambiguity, letting new possibilities emerge from confusion rather than forcing premature clarity.
Commit — surface doubts, risks, and reservations openly, and make explicit requests and promises; genuine commitment grows from belief in the meaning of the work, not from incentives or pressure, and only then does real action planning follow. Cherish — close with appreciation and feedback, turning every meeting into a moment of growth and reconciliation rather than waiting for a training workshop.
Taken together, the 4Cs let a group attend to both doing and being — action and reflection, divergence and convergence in one space. The way a team meets, Wendy argues, is a microcosm of the future it is trying to create.
Key points
- Meetings are where culture is enacted — your stated values either show up there or they don’t.
- The 4Cs integrate task + relationship, action + reflection, speed + depth, divergence + convergence, performance + culture.
- Connect: a genuine check-in first — connection precedes content.
- Content: name the possibility before the action steps, and let ideas emerge from ambiguity.
- Commit: surface doubts and make explicit requests and promises; commitment beats coercion.
- Cherish: close with appreciation and feedback so growth happens in every meeting.
- How a team meets is a microcosm of the future it’s building.