a critical role in ensuring winning outcomes by shaping governance priorities and running with oversight frameworks. When customer and employee experience indicators are incorporated into board-level reporting, they receive the attention they deserve and the support needed for execution. An accountability process for CX and EX reporting included in the scheduled board reporting system would deliver consistent results through consistent accountability.
The board, advisory council or whatever top governing arm of the specific institution, has direct influence on how strategies translate into operational reality. If executives across functions align around experience objectives, top-down gaps, barriers and silos begin to dissolve and collaboration for success increases. In essence, experience excellence requires collective leadership ownership. The entire leadership ecosystem must understand the meal ingredients required to create outstanding experiences- and actively support the systems that deliver them.
Culture Is the Heat in the Kitchen
Experience management depends heavily on culture- the invisible force that shapes how people behave when no one is watching. Culture determines whether employees feel safe to solve customer problems creatively and influences whether teams collaborate across departments. It also determines whether employee play a cloak and dagger game protecting their own silos. A culture audit to determine the heat levels within the organisation and whether the thermostat is well calibrated within all internal kitchens should be a regularly scheduled activity.
Culture also shapes how leaders respond when mistakes occur, and in organizations where blame dominates, employees often become risk-averse and defensive. Where psychological safety exists, teams feel empowered to innovate and take ownership of customer outcomes and be creative in reengineering processes, upgrading products and handling people matters. Leadership behaviour thus matters deeply as this could manifest either as heat that burns or heat that causes shine. The heat that is culture therefore needs to be adjusted to a flame that models humility, accountability, and openness to feedback, with the heat turned up on these. Likewise, the burner on defensiveness, criticism and dismissal of feedback needs to be turned down and switched off to cool forever.
Scraping the Experience Pot
Across different geographies, many organizations have launched ambitious Customer Experience( CX) and Employee Experience( EX) initiatives. These programmes often begin with energy and enthusiasm. Work shops are held, frameworks are introduced, action plans are documented and launched and teams are mobilized. Yet after the initial excitement fades, progress frequently slows- or stops altogether. The food gets stuck in the pot and for many CX and EX practitioners, this is a familiar frustration.
Despite well-designed strategies and passionate teams, they encounter invisible barriers that prevent transformation from taking root. These barriers almost always originate at the top of the organisation causing slow burn and sticky pots. Leaders often express verbal support for experience initiatives but fail to allocate adequate budget or resources. Strategies may be approved but not integrated into broader business priorities and decisions requiring executive endorsement may remain stalled for months. In many cases as well toxic behaviour among senior leaders remains unchallenged, undermining the very culture the organization claims to promote.
When these dynamics occur, experience professionals find themselves trying to stir up food within the pot, attempting to drive transformation from the middle of the organisation while the structural conditions required for success remain unchanged. The result is predictable: progress slows, momentum fades, and initiatives that began with great promise struggle to survive. There is need for cooperation in the kitchen to ensure that what starts out as a promising cooking experience, yields a pleasurable outcome
A Call to Leaders: Step Into the Kitchen
The future of sustainable institutions increasingly lies in experience excellence. Products can be replicated, technology can be acquired, processes can be similarly adopted, but cultures that consistently deliver remarkable experiences are far. harder to emulate. Governments that handle their citizens with courtesy, dignity and respect as a norm, have fewer run ins with citizen compliance and a warmer overall culture as a nation.
For organizations seeking to differentiate themselves, the message is clear that leadership cannot remain distant from experience management. CEOs, executives, and board members must step into the Kitchen- not to micromanage the cooking- but to understand the recipes, inspect the ingredients, and ensure that the standards of cooking excellence, plating and serving remain uncompromising. They must champion the culture required for service excellence, provide the resources necessary for success, and demonstrate through their own behaviour that experience truly matters. When leaders take ownership of this responsibility, powerful victories happen all round.
Employees feel supported and empowered leading to CX and EX practitioners gaining the authority and resources they need to drive meaningful change. Customers too on the receiving end, enjoy experiences worthy of loyalty and trust. In the end, every organisation serves a meal to its stakeholders- through the experiences created each day. The question for leadership is simple: what kind of food will you be serving and will the experience rating by your stakeholders be 5 star? Ultimately that decision begins in the kitchen.
Carolyne Gathuru is the founder and director of strategy at LifeSkills Consulting. She has several years of experience in customer experience strategy development and training. You can commune with her on this or related issues via mail at: CGathuru @ life-skills. co. ke.
11 MAL71 / 26 ISSUE