Your team members are having the wrong conversations with the wrong people.
Hinken Renewal equips you with the facilitative leadership practices that get your team talking with the right people about the right stuff.
The High Cost of Wrong Conversations
When wrong conversations take hold:
- Projects fail and commitments slip, and you learn that someone saw it coming and told everyone else but you.
- Your best people start looking for other jobs to get away from the drama on the team.
- You spend your days refereeing team members’ complaints about each other, instead of leading the team forward.
It’s exhausting, and it’s not the team you set out to lead.
The Quality of a Team’s Conversations
is the Strongest Predictor of its Success.*
*Based on the research of Human Dynamics (MIT), Psychological Safety (Edmondson), and Organizational Learning (Argyris; Senge).
And conversation quality comes down to two questions: who you talk to, and what you talk about.
Only one combination works: talking about the right stuff with the right person.
Your path from stagnation to renewal
The Facilitative Leadership Framework, illustrated below, reveals the fundamental choice every leader faces: to allow their team to remain on the default negative path of stagnation, or to intentionally guide them onto the positive path of renewal. This journey requires a leader to master two core skills: first, to diagnose the defensive conversations that cause stagnation, and second, to facilitate the learning conversations that create renewal.
Products and Programs for Team Renewal
Every team’s journey is unique. To meet you exactly where you are, I’ve designed a suite of complimentary Products and in-depth Programs. Whether you have an immediate, specific challenge or are seeking a deep, foundational change, there is a solution here designed for your current reality.
My Complimentary Products Designed for immediate, high-value support and diagnostic insights:
• Conversational First Aid: A 1-on-1 coaching service for a single, urgent conversation.
• Conversational HealthCheck: A team diagnostic tool to get a clear report on your team’s health.
My In-Depth Programs Designed for foundational skill-building and long-term cultural transformation:
• Conversational Wellness Plan: For building your team’s core, foundational skills.
• Conversational Treatment: For solving a specific, complex, “stuck” team problem.
• Conversational Rehabilitation: For embedding a new, healthy culture for the long term.
All solutions are powered by my proven 4-Step Action Plan, providing a consistent, and yet adaptable, path to success. (See the full process in “The 4-Step Action Plan” section below). Use the guide below to discover which solution is the right fit for your team.
Brian Hinken has
renewed dozens of teams, and
equipped hundreds of leaders through
training, coaching, and facilitation.
Organizations in which Brian has applied the
Facilitative Leadership Framework:
What have clients and colleagues said about Brian's work?
The 4-Step Action Plan
How Does a Facilitative Leader Actually Create a Thriving Team?
The Facilitative Leadership Framework reveals the two paths every team can take: the default Spiral of Team Stagnation, driven by a Defensive Mindset, or the intentional Engine of Team Renewal, driven by a Learning Mindset. As a leader, you may even be unintentionally triggering the defensive patterns that keep your team stuck. But, don’t worry. The key to transforming your team is to FACILITATE the conversations your team is having, which will guide your team onto the path of renewal.
By partnering with Hinken Renewal, you will learn to implement a proven playbook to make this shift. You will be equipped to master the two core jobs of a facilitative leader: first, to diagnose the defensive conversations that cause stagnation, and second, to facilitate the learning conversations that create renewal. This is achieved not through radical disruption, but by transforming the quality and impact of what you are already doing.
To bring this 4-step plan to life, I use three core services as the “building blocks” for our engagement: Training to equip your team with new frameworks, Coaching to guide your leadership, and Facilitation to lead your team through the change process.
Here is the four-step action plan you will master:
Step 1: Diagnose the Defensive Conversations The first step is to learn to diagnose the specific defensive patterns that fuel the spiral of team stagnation. You will learn how to spot these behaviors in your team’s daily work:
- Avoiding Alignment: When individuals withhold their CONTRIBUTION because it feels threatened.
- Limiting Collaboration: When team members restrict their engagement because their AUTONOMY feels threatened.
- Justifying Results: When team members offer excuses, blame, or rationalization for their outcomes because their COMPETENCE feels threatened.
By identifying these behaviors, you gain a clear starting point for intervention.
Step 2: Shift to the Learning Mindset Before you can facilitate new conversations, you must first foster a new mindset. You will learn how to intentionally shift your team from the default Defensive Mindset—where self-protection and fear block progress—to the powerful Learning Mindset. This is the foundational shift from protecting one’s professional self to learning how to leverage it for collective success. It is the essential prerequisite for all meaningful change.
Step 3: Facilitate the Learning Conversations Next, you will master the three learning conversations that power the Engine of Team Renewal. You will learn to facilitate conversations that:
- Build Alignment: Encouraging proactive, constructive participation when their CONTRIBUTION is leveraged.
- Strengthen Collaboration: Fostering active, robust engagement when their AUTONOMY is leveraged.
- Improve Results: Guiding individuals to take responsibility for outcomes, learn from them, and drive tangible betterment when their COMPETENCE is leveraged.
Step 4: Make Team Renewal a Habit Finally, you will learn to make these conversations a consistent practice, keeping the Engine of Team Renewal running smoothly. This is how you embed The Learning Mindset as your team’s default operating system, creating a thriving team that is clear, committed, and capable of high performance.
This 4-step action plan is the proven methodology that I apply to every Product and Program I offer. Whether you need a specific solution for an immediate problem or a long-term cultural transformation, I invite you to review my ‘Products & Programs’ section to find the right fit. Or, we can design a fully customized approach for your team.
