Video - CEO of Cummins Foundation explains why she listens to stakeholders

In this video presented by The Spiritual Capital Project at Yale University, Jean Blackwell, the CEO of Cummins Foundation explains why her company listens to stakeholders and how listening to stakeholders as well as shareholders is the best approach for long-term success.

Listen to Stakeholders - Video transcript

Title screen: Cummins, Inc. Embracing the Stakeholder Model.

"Cummins many years ago adopted the Stakeholder Model. Luckily as we are headquartered in the state of Indiana. Indiana passed on of the more progressive corporate laws, that allows people to not just think about shareholders, but to think about the full range of Stakeholders.

When you only think about shareholders and that's it, you tend to think very short-term. But when you think I want to be here, ninety a hundred years from now, you have to think about who you are going to be recruiting, you have to think about who you are going to selling to, you have to think about what communities you are going to be involved in, not just a year from now, but twenty years from now."

And so if you don't build an inclusive environment, if we hadn't started building an inclusive environment 30 years' ago for African Americans to work in our company, how could we expect to sell to African Americans?

If we hadn't started building, you know, are Chinese employees into our system and employing them in our plants and training them in leadership. How could we expect to be well over a billion dollar company in China rightnow?

Ah.. so we're a big believer in.. "it's a big world, and we have to think thirty, fourty years' out, not one quarter out" and embracing that full stakeholder model helps us do that.

You also listen better. When you're thinking about your impact on your customers, on your suppliers, on your community, on your employees and trying to listen, you will hear things you need to hear.

Umm.. and if you only listen to "did you have a good quarter?" you're not going to get the best people, your're not going to get the best suppliers who are with you in good times and bad, your're not gonna have customers in the long run

Yeah, so its, its a, its good for us and its good for them."

Video references and further reading

Spiritual Capital Media - youtube channel.

Stakeholder theory - in this video Edward Freeman explains stakeholder theory and why it important for doing business Stakeholder analysis templates in Word, Visio and Excel.

Stakeholder Definition

Generic stakeholder list.

Happy Stakeholders - Pleasure and Displeasure List. An inovative approach to managing Stakeholders from Herding Chickens: Innovative Techniques for Project Management, by Dan Bradbary, David Garrett

Internal stakeholders- how to identify them

Stakeholder who are Key Players - Some Stakeholders are really important. How do you find them and get them on your side before they can do any damage?

Stakeholder mindmap

Project stakeholders - typical stakeholders on a project