Culture Is Everything

by MHolland | Jun 19, 2026 | Business Tips, Systems

Culture is the pinnacle of creation.

I mean that. If you build a genuine culture in your business, you transform everything around you. Your team. Your customers. The quality of work. The kinds of clients you attract. All of it.

And yet. Most business owners spend almost no time on it.

I want to talk about why that is a mistake. A big one. And I want to tell you a story about the moment I almost made it myself.

What Culture Actually Is

One definition: “The set of predominating attitudes and behaviors that characterize a group or organization.”

Fine. But that still does not quite capture it.

Culture is invisible. You cannot see it. It is not in your operations manual. It does not live in any one person. It is not your systems, your policies, or your org chart.

And yet you feel it the moment you walk into a business that has it.

Think of a business you love. One that has outlasted its founders. One where every interaction feels consistent, warm, excellent. Where the service is the same whether the owner is in the building or on a beach in Mexico.

That is culture. It is the soul of the place.

Still. Small. Unseen. Felt everywhere.

Where It Comes From

It starts with you.

As Founder. As CEO. As Manager.

Culture begins with your beliefs. What you believe gets transmitted through your actions. Through what you say. And — crucially — through how you say it. Your tone. Your consistency. The way you treat a junior team member when you are under pressure. The way you talk about a difficult client when they are not in the room. The way you show up when things go sideways.

Your team is watching. All of it. Always.

And they will mirror it back. To each other. And to your customers.

Culture is not built in a team-building afternoon. It is built — quietly, relentlessly — in ten thousand small moments of a business day.

Why Most Business Owners Miss It

Here is what I see over and over.

Almost all the time, money, and mental energy goes into systems. Hiring. Managing. Operations. Firefighting. Just generally, getting stuff done.

And I get it. There are payables due. There is a client issue. There is a hire that is not working out. Culture feels like something you will get to later. When things calm down. When there is more time.

But things never calm down.

And culture, left unattended, does not stay neutral. It drifts. And usually not in the direction you would choose.

The Day I Cracked My Own Ming Vase

I love our culture at Controllership Plus. I am genuinely proud of it.

It is built on respect. Excellence. Kindness. Results over process. Going the extra mile for our clients. We did not stumble into it. It was deliberately created, carefully tended, and it shows in the team we have and the clients we keep.

Which is why what happened next shocked me.

I raised my voice. In an interaction with a team member. It was one moment. Not a tirade. Not a blow-up. Just a raised voice that left someone feeling devalued.

And I was the one who did it.

Me. The person who created this culture. Who initiated it. Who breathed life into it. Who writes blogs about it, for goodness sake.

I cracked the Ming vase.

Here is what I learned in that moment. I had made a quiet, dangerous assumption. I had started to think of our culture as tensile steel. Permanent. Unbreakable. Something that could absorb anything I threw at it because we had built it so well.

It is not tensile steel. Or rather — it is both things at once. Strong enough to survive. Fragile enough to crack in a single careless moment. Like a tree that has weathered decades of storms but can still be split by one bolt of lightning.

I caught it quickly. I apologized. Directly. Sincerely. I followed up with an email so there was no ambiguity about where I stood. I paid closer attention to my words in the days that followed.

Our culture was not destroyed. It is strong and intact. But it woke me up.

As in any relationship — a marriage, a friendship, a team — it only takes one or two bad acts to begin unraveling a lifetime of tenderness. The repair is possible. But the prevention is everything.

Now Some of You Are Ready to Scream

“Mark, this is all very nice. But I run a business. Not a monastery. I need results. Revenue. Accountability.”

I hear you.

But here is what I have seen, time and again, in the businesses I work with closely.

Strong culture means lower turnover. Lower turnover means lower hiring and training costs. Lower costs mean higher margins. Higher margins mean more profit.

Culture also drives customer experience. Customer experience drives loyalty. Loyalty drives referrals. And referrals are the cheapest, highest-converting leads you will ever get.

Culture is not soft. Culture is a balance sheet item. We just do not have a way to put it there yet.

The Businesses That Last

Go find a business that has been genuinely thriving for 30, 40, 50 years. One that has outlasted its founder. One that has survived recessions, leadership transitions, and the chaos of the world.

I will make you a bet.

Somewhere in that company’s history, a leader made culture a deliberate priority. Not a side project. A priority. They were intentional about how people spoke to each other. What got celebrated and what was not tolerated. The tone. The standards. The values. They put in the work — not with a big budget, but with consistency and relentless care.

And it stuck. It became the way things are done here. Even when no one could quite explain why.

That is the real power of culture. It outlives the people who built it.

Where to Start

You do not need a consultant. You do not need a two-day offsite. You do not need a culture committee.

You need one question.

“What do I want it to feel like to work here? And to be a customer here?”

Then start living it. In your next team meeting. In your next client call. In how you respond to the first difficult thing that happens today.

Culture is built one moment at a time.

I know. Because I almost forgot that. And a good person reminded me.

Thanks for reading…

Are You Tired of the AI Firehose? Me Too. Here’s What Actually Works.

by MHolland | May 29, 2026 | Business Tips, Systems

Are you a little sick and tired of being fire-hosed with the latest and greatest on AI? Yeah, me too.

And yet… I am also genuinely fascinated with what it can do.

So, let me share what I have been learning – practically, on the ground, with my Team – about working with AI effectively. No hype. Just what is working.

Step One – Pick One or Two Tools and Stick With Them

First things first. Beware of shiny object syndrome.

There is a new AI tool launching every single week. It is tempting to jump from one to the next, sampling each one like a buffet. Resist that urge.

Right now, I am highly focused on Claude. I have a Teams account and have enrolled most of my Team in using it. Why Claude? Because I have gone deep with it. Depth beats breadth every time.

Before you dive in, ask yourself – what do I actually want to accomplish with this? Start there. Then pick your tool and commit.

What Can It Actually Do? More Than You Think.

Start simple. Here are a few easy wins to get going:

• Reformatting emails so they sound clear and professional
• Writing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) from scratch
• Summarizing long documents in seconds

But go a little further and it gets impressive fast.

Claude’s design work is stunning. I used it to create a standard look and feel for our Controller’s Reports across all of our clients. Clean, consistent, professional.

It maneuvers through Excel like Circ’ de Soleil. Seriously.

And now? It connects directly to our accounting software – Xero and QuickBooks Online.

A Real-Life Example That Blew My Mind

One of our Team members recently asked me if Claude could update hundreds of contacts in Xero for currency settings.

Manually, this was a painful, repetitive task. Open a contact. Scroll to the currency field. Click the dropdown. Choose USD or CAD. Save. Close. Repeat. Hundreds of times.

Claude could not write directly to the contacts because Xero only provides read-only access. But then it asked – “Would you like me to build a program?”

I said sure – for fun!

Using the Xero API, Claude built a custom software interface. In minutes, it updated hundreds of contacts – with one click of a button.

That is not just impressive. That is a game-changer for productivity.

Think of Yourself as the Director – Not the Programmer

Here is a mental shift that changed everything for me.

Do not think of AI as just computer code. Think of it like you are the human director on a movie set. AI is an improvisational actor, ready to play any role you give it.

The sky is the limit with the roles you assign. Try something like this – “You are a PhD-level scientist who has studied weather patterns in sub-Saharan Africa for 90 years.”

You get the idea. The more specific and vivid the role, the better the performance you will get.

And Here’s the Part That Might Surprise You – Be Polite

In using Claude, I am super polite and friendly. Please. Thank you. That sort of thing.

Is that a bit over the top? Perhaps. Yet I genuinely believe I get much better responses as a result.

Think about it this way. If AI functions more like an actor – or a series of actors, depending on what you need – then wouldn’t it make sense to coax out the very best performance possible?

I cannot prove it scientifically. But I feel it works better with kindness.

Just like your Team does.

In Summary

Here are the key takeaways to get the most out of AI in your business:

• Pick one or two tools and go deep. Avoid shiny object syndrome.
• Start with simple tasks – emails, SOPs, formatting – and build from there.
• Think like a director, not a programmer. Give it a vivid role to play.
• Be specific about what you want it to accomplish.
• Be kind. You may be surprised at the results.

Thanks for reading…