The CEO Who Killed His Company With One Word

Four years of zero growth traced back to one linguistic pattern

Sharran Srivatsaa

Dec 18, 2025

I was listening to a podcast interview recently with the CEO of a pretty large company.

I know CEO personally and I also know the business well.

The entire interview, he kept saying the same thing:

I have the answers.
I have the keys to the kingdom.
I have the products.
I have the relationships.
I have the funds.

I, I, I.

For the record, his company hasn’t grown in 4 years.

Let me explain the deeper problem.

Culture Gets Built Through Behavior

Most people think culture is fluffy.
They think it is a feeling. Maybe it is something you talk about in annual retreats and then forget by Tuesday.

When I was the President of Real (Nasdaq: REAX), we grew from 6,800 agents to 28,000 agents in under 2.5 years. We generated over a billion dollars in operating revenue.

That happened because we operationalized 4 specific behaviors that most companies either don’t know or choose to ignore.

1. Name the People, Not the Team

“Good job team” is worthless.
People know you’re just checking a box because some leadership book told you to celebrate wins.

What actually works:

Name the person
Name the deed
Tie it to impact

“Maria fixed our pricing plan. Because of that, we booked $10,000 more today.”

“James ran the analysis and closed our biggest deal.”

Teams perform 35% better when leaders call out specific people
and specific actions.

If you have Slack, pin a shout-outs channel at the top. Post there. Name names. Tell everyone exactly what they did.

2. Kill Bad Attitudes Immediately

One toxic person cuts team productivity by 10-15%.
Just by being there.

Zappos figured this out early. During onboarding, they offered people $2,000 to quit if they didn’t think the culture was the right fit. Only 5% took the money. Everyone who stayed was fully committed because they chose to be there.

The line that should make you run for the hills: “That’s not my job.”

When you hear it, address it immediately.

“Hey Jimmy, I heard you say that’s not your job. What’s happening?”

Let them explain.
Give them time to fix it.
Set a deadline.

Close the loop with an agreed upon timeline:

“Can you show me this by Friday?”

If nothing changes, you know they’re not a fit. Remove them from channels. Raise the bar. Whatever it takes.

Bad attitudes are expensive. You gotta cut them fast even though you might not want to rock the apple cart.

3. Build a Weekly Shout-Out Ritual

In 1999, Toy Story 2 was a mess. The edit wasn’t great. Things weren’t working.

Pixar created something called the Brain Trust.

These were weekly story-only feedback sessions where everyone could speak freely. The directors listened and didn’t jump in to defend anything.

They just absorbed feedback and discussed it later.

That process saved Toy Story 2.

It clocked $500 million box office for an animation film. And this process became core to how Pixar works.

I encourage every leader I speak to in our company to do shout-outs every Friday. It forces them to stop and think. It also generally flows with the happenings of the week. Meaning, Its a nice weekly recap and t shows gratitude before the weekend.

Its a total culture cheat-code.

Ask yourself:
Who do I recognize today? What did they specifically do?

Examples:

“Nicole, congratulations. You crushed that client presentation. We closed because of how you handled their objections.”
“James, without your analysis, we would’ve missed that pricing error. It saved us $150K.”
“Leo, that design revision you turned around in 24 hours kept us on schedule. You are awesome!”

Name the person. Name the result. Make it uber specific.
People want to be seen for what they actually contribute.

Think about it: How excited are you when someone shouts you out. Now, do it for them!

4. Swap “I” for “We”

Nobody built anything great by themselves.

When Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft, his first memo said this: “Let’s move from a know-it-all culture to a learn-it-all culture.”

He started company hackathons. He put learning budgets in place. He focused on investing in a culture that encouraged curiosity.

Damn. So good.

It is no surprise to me that Microsoft’s market cap went from $300 billion to $900 billion in 5 years.

We > Me.

Try this…

Scan your last 5 messages. How many times did you say “I” when you could’ve said “we”?

Here are 3 ways to operationalize this:

Every Monday morning before you send your first message, swap the I for the we.
Tell your team: “If anyone sees an ‘I’ that should be a ‘we,’ call it out”
If you use ChatGPT to draft messages, tell it: “Replace ‘I’ with ‘we’ when appropriate. I want to use more inclusive language”