EP10 - What do I do when someone on the team has the wrong mindset?

I have worked in five-star hotels.

I have built teams of eighty people.

I have worked in a Big Four environment with hundreds of employees and an almost 50% attrition rate.

Now I build venture studios and investment ecosystems.

And I keep hearing the same question.

How do you build a high-performing team without a corporate structure?

The assumption behind that question is simple.

No hierarchy means chaos.
No corporate framework means no accountability.
No heavy structure means no performance.

I do not agree.

Structure is not the same as bureaucracy

When people say structure, they often mean policies, reporting lines, approvals, and committees.

That is not a structure.

That is control.

Real structure is clarity.

Clarity of goals.
Clarity of roles.
Clarity of expectations.
Clarity of standards.

You can have this in a ten-person startup. You can also miss it in a thousand-person corporation.

High performance is not about how many layers you have. It is about whether people know what they are building and why.

I learned this the hard way

In hospitality, if one team member has the wrong mindset, the whole evening suffers.

You can feel it immediately.

One waiter who thinks it is not their job.
One bartender who does the minimum.
One manager who hides behind excuses.

It spreads.

Later in recruitment, and then inside KPMG, I saw the same thing at scale.

Great policies.
Great PowerPoint slides.
Beautiful corporate language.

But no ownership.

People were hired for technical skills. Not for mindset. Nobody invested in leadership. No one translated the company goals into team reality.

Attrition exploded.

So we rebuilt from scratch.

Clear competencies.
Clear training.
Clear expectations.
Constant communication.

Not because it looked good. Because it was necessary.

Mindset is everything

In early-stage ventures, especially in Deep Tech or MedTech, you cannot afford passengers.

You need builders.

People with energy.
People with hunger.
People who take responsibility without being asked.

I have made hiring mistakes. Everyone has.

Hiring someone because they are likable. Because they fit socially. Because you inherited them from another department.

It rarely works.

You should not hire people you just want to have a beer with. Those are friends.

In a high-performing team, mindset comes first.

Skills can be trained.
Experience can be added.
Hunger cannot.

If someone fundamentally lacks ownership, it is almost impossible to change.

So what do you do without corporate pressure?

You build culture with intention.

Culture is not posters on the wall. It is a behavior repeated daily.

If you want high performance without bureaucracy, you need five things.

1. Shared direction

Company goals must be translated into team goals.

If the team does not understand how their work connects to the bigger picture, motivation drops.

In a startup or venture studio, this is even more important.

Why are we building this?
Who are we serving?
What does success look like this quarter?

Make it concrete.

2. Clear roles and responsibilities

Ambiguity kills speed.

Everyone should know what they own.

Not in a rigid corporate way. In a practical way.

Who makes the decision?

Who executes.
Who supports.

If two people think they own the same thing, conflict appears. If nobody owns it, nothing happens.

3. Transparent communication

No politics.

No hidden agendas.

If something is not working, say it.

If someone underperforms, address it early.

Transparency builds trust. Trust builds speed.

In small teams, silence is more dangerous than conflict.

4. Feedback and development

High performance requires growth.

One-on-one conversations matter. Not a performance review theater. Real conversations.

How are you planning your week?
Where are you stuck?
What do you need to improve?

If you cannot hire seniors, develop them.

You learn by doing.

5. Protect the culture

This is the hardest part.

When someone consistently brings the wrong mindset, you have two options.

Ignore it.
Or protect the system.

If your standards are clear and you walk the talk, the culture corrects itself.

Either the person adapts to the level. Or they leave.

It sounds harsh. It is not personal. It is about protecting the team.

One person with the wrong energy can cost you ten strong ones.

Investors should care about this

If you are an investor, especially early stage, you are not investing in a product. You are investing in a team.

In venture studios and ecosystems, structure looks different.

There is no traditional hierarchy. There are shared services. Entrepreneurs in residence. Co-building models.

Performance comes from alignment, not control.

When I look at founders or partners, I look at mindset first.

Are they honest?
Are they transparent?
Do they take ownership?
Do they think long-term?

You can sense it quickly.

High performance without bureaucracy is not about being informal. It is about being intentional.

The system is the team

I often say the team is the system.

If you build the right team, processes become lighter.

If you build the wrong team, processes multiply.

Bureaucracy is often a symptom of low trust.

When trust is low, rules increase.

When trust is high, clarity is enough.

That does not mean chaos. It means accountability without ego.

In UniPrisma, we co-build ventures.

We cannot afford corporate layers. We need speed and depth at the same time.

So we rely on mindset, clarity, and systems thinking.

Simple frameworks. Clear goals. Honest conversations.

It is not always comfortable. But it works.

Final thought

If you want a high-performing team without corporate structure, stop asking how to add more rules.

Start asking:

Who am I hiring?
What do we stand for?
Are we clear about expectations?
Do we walk the talk?

Performance is not created by hierarchy.

It is created by people who care.

Build with intention. Protect the culture. And keep it human.

Timecode:

00:00 Dealing With a Teammate’s Wrong Mindset

00:05 Why It Happens: Hiring & Inherited Team Members

00:25 The Hard Truth: Mindset Is Tough to Change

00:27 Let Culture Do the Work: Team Standards Correct Behavior

00:38 Keep Raising the Bar (and It Often Solves Itself)

Links:

Uniprisma: https://uniprisma.com/

Meijer & Co.: https://meijerandco.com/

Personal Website: https://www.thijmenmeijer.com/

Transcript:

What do I do when in the team when somebody has a wrong mindset? Actually, I was also struggling with that, quite often, when you are hiring people that are, you, they're good to have a beer with, but they're not so good on the working floor when you are hiring people that, you inherited basically from other teams or you inherit that, because they're moving, different from different departments to you.

A mindset is really hard to change. but when the culture within the team or the culture within the company, depending on how big your structure is, it will definitely turn dispersion or the person would live by itself. so if you keep up with the up and up, it will solve itself