How Safety Values Illuminate the Path to CX Excellence, with Dr. John Kello – Part 1

What does “culture” really mean in an organization—and why is it the hardest part to change? In this conversation, Lynn Daniel sits down with Dr. John Kello, Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Davidson College and organizational consultant, to explore the deep connections between safety culture and customer experience (CX) culture. Drawing from decades of research and consulting, Dr. Kello explains:

• Why culture is the “personality” of an organization
• How core values act as non-negotiable guardrails for decision-making
• The difference between “envisioned culture” and “enacted culture”
• Why safety and CX both succeed—or fail—based on cultural alignment

Whether you lead a safety program, manage customer experience, or want to understand how values translate into everyday behavior, this discussion delivers practical insights you can apply today.

Transcript:

Lynn Daniel (CEO):
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us.
I want to welcome John Kello this morning.
John is Professor Emeritus of Psychology from Davidson College.
His academic focus is on industrial-organizational psychology.
He started his own consulting firm in 1990, focusing on organizational effectiveness—especially in safety.
That’s an incredibly important topic for many companies, especially in B2B.
He’s also been a longtime friend and advisor to me and to our firm.
We’ve had many years of a very fruitful relationship with John.
So John, welcome.

Dr. John Kello:
Thanks, Lynn.
There’s definitely a connection between safety and the risk of overstress and burnout.
I’ve worked with healthcare organizations and coauthored a book called The Burned-Out Physician that came out in 2022.
So burnout and safety have really become focal points in both my consulting and research.
I describe myself as a deep generalist—I’m interested in many things, and I like the cross-fertilization of ideas across disciplines.
I try to stay current with psychology and medical research.
But if I had to pick two areas where I have deep expertise, safety and burnout would be at the top.

Lynn:
One of the reasons I wanted to have you on today is because I see parallels between customer experience (CX) and the safety models used in many companies.
A lot of companies have made real progress in improving their safety cultures.
And I use that word intentionally—culture—because in our CX work, clients have survey processes and short-term fixes in place, but they often hit a wall when it comes to real improvement.
And that wall is culture.
So that’s where I want to go today—what can we learn from your experience with safety culture that can be applied to CX?
First, how do you define culture?
Most managers I talk to know what good and bad cultures feel like, but they can’t always define them clearly.

John:
One shorthand definition I like is this: culture is the personality of the organization.
There’s a strong parallel between an individual’s personality and the personality—or culture—of an organization.
The concept of organizational culture comes from anthropology.
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, we brought it into business and began using it to describe what it’s like to work somewhere.
How are decisions made? What is valued?
How are employees, customers, and suppliers treated?
There are norms—behavioral expectations.
Those norms define what’s acceptable and what’s not.
That’s the power of culture: it sets expectations for day-to-day behavior.
At the core of culture are values—your nonnegotiable beliefs.
Everything else flows from that: strategy, daily behavior, performance reviews, everything.
So first, identify those core values.
Then ask: are we living those values?
Is our enacted culture—what we actually do—aligned with our envisioned culture—what we say we do?
A lot of organizations have values on posters and in mission statements.
But do those values show up in real behavior?
That’s the test.
Have we elevated key values like safety, CX, trust, or excellence?
Are we acting on those every day?

Lynn:
That makes sense.
It’s like having guardrails—you know when you’re close or when you’ve gone over.
But often, the guardrails aren’t clear.
And that comes back to values.

John:
Exactly.
In my work—especially in safety—I’ve always started by asking leadership: Is this a priority, or is it a nonnegotiable core value?
Because priorities can change. Core values shouldn’t.
If safety is just a priority, it might get pushed aside in hard times.
But if it’s a core value, it holds firm.
I wrote a column for 15 years in Industrial Safety & Hygiene News called Positive Cultures.
In that work, I’d help organizations define their commitment to safety—and ask, what are the visible markers of a strong safety culture?
Once that foundation is in place, it opens the door to define your broader culture.
What’s your commitment to CX? To your community?
It all builds on that clarity about values—and what those values look like in action.