Case Study

SPONSORING FOR GROWTH

CLIENT PROFILE

This renowned academic health system includes hospitals, clinics, and physician practices throughout the third largest city in America, which is also 29% Black. They employ more than 10,000 people and operating revenue is north of 2B.

CHALLENGE AND ASK

The health system serves a significant Black population and employs many Black women but had very little Black female leadership representation. This disconnect between decision makers and patients was impacting their ability to effectively serve the community, and they wanted to develop an engaging sponsorship program that would help Black women leaders advance to higher levels of contribution. The client believed the stagnation in lower levels was due to a lack of visibility and advocacy in talent decision-making
processes.

APPROACH

Knowing genuine relationships between sponsors and sponsees is a critical enabler to effective advocacy, we collaborated on a shared learning journey as opposed to a simple match-making approach that would span six months and include multiple touchpoints—both with the whole group and with each discrete group. We surveyed the sponsor participants up front to ascertain their confidence and competence in leading across differences, knowing we could administer the same survey at the end to understand the sentiment change. We also planned to measure “movement” – whether the sponsees’ careers were positively impacted by the experience through expanded roles or promotions.

SOLUTION

The first cohort of the sponsorship program included six pairs, each comprised of one high-level white male executive and an aspiring Black woman leader. There were multiple educational touchpoints for the entire group, with facilitated interactive discussions on the following topics:

“The Black Experience at Work and in the World” (data and discussion), with a deep dive into how that experience translated to their specific workplace
“Defining Great,” a guided aspiration session that allowed the group to imagine a preferred future and explore required behaviors to achieve it
A barriers session focused on what was preventing the advancement of Black talent, with future risks outlined

To supplement these group learning exchanges, we held coaching sessions for the sponsors and sponsees separately, discussing specific challenges and opportunities and providing guidance on choices and behaviors to unlock greater potential.

OUTCOMES

Within a year, 5 of the 6 Black women had new and expanded roles (including promotions), and the white male sponsors reported an increased understanding of the moments during which their advocacy is most important. They also reported an increase in comfort intervening on others’ behalf, and greater commitment to leading forward and expecting the same of their reports.