Cityblock Health
Enhancing the Leadership and Wellbeing of Cityblock Managers during a period of hyper-growth
Cityblock Health is a Google spinout that works with people in underserved communities and their insurance providers to address gaps in their current healthcare. The company splits the cost savings that come with better care with the insurance company.
Cityblock is operated by a diverse group of care professionals — social workers, therapists, doctors, nurses, and advanced care practitioners — who live and work in the communities they serve.
Given Cityblock’s social mission, we were delighted when we had the opportunity to work with Dr. Sydney Savion — voted the #1 CLO globally by her peers — to help their managers (many of them first-time managers) develop core managerial skills and enhance their resilience and well-being to navigate rapid growth. After only five years, the company is valued at $5B and is essentially a new company every 6 months.
The Abroad & Cityblock Manager Program included the following components:
Psychometric Assessment - Participants took Abroad’s 15-minute psychometric assessment that measures Self Awareness, Team Cohesion, and Vision & Impact before and after the program.
Custom Growth Plan - Each participant then reviewed their assessment with an Abroad coach who helped them uncover the underlying mindsets and behaviors driving their results, with the goal of generating a customized growth plan for their leadership development.
Orientation - A live call was hosted to provide context around the program, make key agreements for success, and build a foundation of trust and community.
Digital Learning - Each week participants listened to audio masterclass content on Abroad’s digital learning platform so they could come to the live sessions with a foundational understanding of key learning/concepts.
Cohort-Based Learning - Participants attended bi-weekly live sessions that were designed to revisit and apply key learnings, while fostering accountability and community to ensure the program’s success.
1:1 Leadership Coaching - All People Managers received two, 45-minute 1:1 coaching sessions per month.
Aggregate and
Comparative Results
The below quantitative results represent the aggregate assessment scores of the managers that completed the program. Of note, on a psychometric 1-6 scale, a 5% improvement is significant.
Self-Awareness
Team Cohesion
Vision & Impact
Acknowledgements
Overall, the participants experienced improvements in all 18 categories we measure, with 5%+ improvements in 13 out of 18 categories, which is exceptional. The numbers are clear that the program is having an impact on their leadership, mental health, team culture, and overall performance.
Key Insights
We were pleasantly surprised by the significant improvements in team cohesion. This is likely the result of the high level of participation in the individual coaching sessions, a focus on core managerial competencies during those sessions, and excellent delivery by our coaches who remarkably achieved a 100 NPS, the highest NPS score for 1:1 coaching in our organization’s history. Additionally, Managers who participated in Abroad's Program were 50% less likely than their peers to turnover.
For the Self Awareness subcategories, these are also statistically-significant gains, especially when you take into account that Cityblock is undergoing rapid growth. We would consider it a success to simply stabilize the managers as they navigate these environments. However, they did not just stabilize, they made improvements in managing their stress, time, workload, growth mindset, and abilities to adapt to unexpected outcomes.
On a final note, we are delighted to see that the managers are collectively much more confident in their leadership strengths and competencies. Many of them are first-time managers, so this is a positive development in a world where 50-80% of people experience impostor syndrome regularly.
Abroad Net Promoter Score:
Abroad Overall: 77
Group Facilitation: 67
1:1 Coaching: 100
For reference, NPS for Apple (72), Amazon (53), Google (51), Netflix (68), Spotify (54), Starbucks (77), Disney (49)
Qualitative Feedback
Here is some qualitative feedback that we received to complement the quantitative results:
Abroad has truly changed my life and I would recommend it (and have) to absolutely anyone considering it!
Dionne has been
absolutely incredible to
work with! She is a star. Dionne helped me dig through my many layers of feeling(s) about work and clarify my priorities for myself, which were previously out of focus.
I thoroughly enjoy the
abroad program and recommend it to any anyone who wants grow professionally. Dionne has been an amazing coach and really supportive during a tough transition period for me. Thank you all!
Tyche is so skilled, so emotionally intelligent, and provides me with extremely helpful feedback and input regarding not only my advancement as a leader, but also as a whole person.
Emily is an amazing coach,
she meets me where I am at during every session together, provides valuable feedback, is an active listener, and truly has given me such amazing guidance and support in becoming a more rounded manager
Really enjoyed this
experience w/ Abroad. 1:1's
were great however the group discussion was also amazing. A lot of the discussion resonated with me. I appreciate the gentle opportunities to push back on self-induced stress, frustration, blame, and helplessness.
Next Steps
After a successful manager cohort, Abroad is now being offered to Cityblock’s 200 managers who have not yet participated in the program. We are also discussing working with the executive team to create shared learning and integration throughout the organization.
We invite you to schedule a call with one of Abroad's people executives to explore how we might be able to support you with your individual, team, and organizational development efforts. You can reach a member of our team by e-mailing us at:
