749: Sven Gierlinger, part 1: Transforming the Culture of a New York Hospital Chain as a Chief Experience Officer

This Sustainable Life

I heard about Sven through the articles below about the cultural change at Northwell, a chain of hospitals around New York City.

I recommend reading the Post article before listening to this episode. It may read overly positive about the food, but Sven and I ate just after recording at the hospital the regular food they serve patients. It was incredible. I would never have dreamed food at a hospital could taste so good and look so appealing. I figured American hospitals had just capitulated and converted to doof.

From a leadership perspective, I'm most interested in the processes and people behind changing a culture. Serving better food overlaps with the environment in that everyone knows and agrees high-quality food beats low-quality, especially at a hospital, and everyone knows clean air beats polluted air, but we created a culture that makes low quality hospital food and polluted air normal. Sven helped turn around a system and not just any system. Hospitals handle life and death, face heavy regulation, include doctors with special needs, and more things that raise the stakes. He has to deal with people, technology, finances, and everything.

He seems to have succeeded. Can Sven be a role model for we who are trying to change global culture?

Two articles featuring Sven:

• Washington Post: Hospital food is a punchline. These chefs are redefining it.
• Becker's Hospital Review: How one health system rewrote a menu and big cliché

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