In 2024 I created the LEAD podcast with my good friend Geert van der Cruijsen. In this podcast we explored the various aspects of building an engineering culture. We made quite some episodes. With guests and without guests. And I thought it would be a great idea to share some of these stories combined with my insights from these episodes on this blog. All credits do not go to me. They go to Geert as well, and to our guests. And of course to Xebia, the company I work for, for making this possible.
Growing a DevOps Mindset
We often think that implementing change in an organization is mostly about technology. And to be honest, technically it often is quite doable. Engineers usually make things work. They learn new tools, adapt their code, and get stuff running. The real difficulty starts when that change requires them to work differently with others. Outside of their team, outside of their comfort zone. That’s when it gets hard.
This episode with Geert was all about the mindset required to truly embrace that kind of change. A mindset that we often refer to as the DevOps mindset.
The Firewall Guy
One of the examples we touched on was cloud migration. A technical shift, sure, but what it often reveals is how deeply siloed organizations still are. Development teams are excited about agility, automation, and speed. But then you run into the security team, who treat the cloud like a traditional data center. Need a firewall port open? That’ll take two weeks.
It’s not just bureaucracy. It’s mindset. “It is what it is” becomes the default. People stop challenging how things are done. Sometimes, it’s about control. Sometimes it’s fear. Fear of becoming irrelevant. If I’m no longer the gatekeeper of the firewall, what’s left of my job?
That fear is human. And it gets in the way of change.
Fixed vs Growth Mindset
That reminded me of a powerful framework: Carol Dweck’s concept of the growth mindset. She studied why some people thrive under challenge and others retreat. The difference? It wasn’t intelligence or skill. It was how they saw effort and failure.
People with a fixed mindset believe their abilities are static. Success defines them. Failure threatens them. So they avoid risk, avoid challenge, avoid looking stupid. People with a growth mindset see ability as something to develop. They embrace challenge. They learn from feedback. They don’t tie their identity to the outcome.
It clicked for me. So many symptoms we see in resistant teams come down to this. Status quo thinking. Siloed behavior. Saying yes without action. It’s all rooted in a fear of being wrong, of being exposed, or of being seen as less.
Three Fears That Block Change
Another big inspiration to me is the book Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni, which talks about three common fears in professional environments:
- Fear of being embarrassed – not asking questions, not challenging decisions.
- Fear of losing your job or business – holding back honest input, sugarcoating the truth.
- Fear of being inferior – avoiding anything that makes you feel less competent than others.
You can’t build a DevOps mindset if these fears dominate the culture. We need to create environments where it’s okay to not know. Where people feel safe to ask the “dumb” question. Where mistakes are learning opportunities, not career enders.
Changing Mindsets with ADKAR
So how do you shift that mindset across an organization? One model I find useful is ADKAR:
- Awareness – Why are we doing this? What’s the bigger picture?
- Desire – What’s in it for me? Why should I care?
- Knowledge – What do I need to learn?
- Ability – Can I practice in a safe space?
- Reinforcement – How do we recognize and sustain the change?
We often skip straight to knowledge. We flood people with training, tools, and Terraform examples. But if there’s no desire, none of it sticks. If there’s no awareness, they don’t even understand what they’re being asked to change. It’s like teaching someone how to drive without ever telling them why they need a car.
Trust Before Conflict, Conflict Before Commitment
Changing a mindset is not just individual work. It’s team dynamics. Culture. Geert summed it up nicely: trust comes first. Only when people trust each other can they disagree, have conflict, and commit together to a new direction. Without that, people hold back. They nod in meetings and disengage afterward.
And sometimes, what sounds like “everybody disagrees” is just the vocal minority. Most people are somewhere in the middle. Not actively resisting, but not moving either. That silent majority is your lever. Focus on them. Support them. Find the quiet influencers and help them step forward. Change spreads faster when it comes from peers, not just from above.
Effort Over Outcome
Maybe the most important thing we touched on is something very personal. Praise effort, not just outcome. In school. In parenting. In organizations. If we only reward results, people won’t take risks. They won’t try new things. They won’t grow.
But if we reward effort, curiosity, collaboration, and reflection, we build something much stronger. We create a culture where learning is valued and fear takes a back seat.
That’s the DevOps mindset. And it’s something we can all grow into.
The original Episode
If you want to listen to the original episode, you can listen to this
The Road to ALM 