Leadership Development
How Cummins builds strategic instincts its leaders still use years later.
For more than a decade, Cummins has run its senior and executive leaders through a customized business simulation, framed by the company's own strategy and kept current as the business shifts from diesel to zero-emission power. Leaders who went through it years ago still use what they learned.
- 7years on, leaders are still using what they learned
- 10+years as a cornerstone of Cummins leadership development
- 2leadership tiers run on it, from senior managers to the executive track
The short version
- Cummins develops leaders for decisions that run into the billions, and needed development that would still matter years later, not fade after the workshop.
- Its Leadership Accelerator runs both tiers of the pipeline through a customized business simulation, with scenarios drawn from Cummins's own shift from diesel to zero-emission power.
- The design is deliberate "bookends": the company's strategy framed going in, an out-of-company simulation in the middle, and senior leaders drawing the connections back to Cummins coming out.
- More than a decade in, leaders are still using what they learned seven years later, cohorts still reference it, and investors point to the strength of the pipeline.
Most leadership training fades. Cummins needed the opposite
Cummins develops leaders for decisions that run into the billions, at a company remaking itself from diesel engines into zero-emission power. The stakes are real, and so was the problem with how leadership usually gets taught: slides and case studies rarely survive contact with the calendar. Cummins wanted development that would still matter to a leader years after they left the room.
It also wanted leadership development to be everyone's job, not a task handed to HR.
We see leadership development as a full-contact sport. It's not just HR's responsibility. Many of us have benefited from it, and now we're responsible for paying that forward.Jeff Wiltrout, VP of Corporate Strategy, Cummins
A simulation built around Cummins's own transition
The answer was the Leadership Accelerator: a customized business simulation that runs across both tiers of Cummins's leadership pipeline, the Global Leadership Development Program for senior managers and the Executive Development Program for leaders heading toward the C-suite. The scenarios blend Cummins's legacy diesel business with the zero-emission technologies it is building next, so leaders practice the exact strategic tension the company is living.
The bookends: why it sticks, and stays relevant
What makes it work, in Jeff Wiltrout's telling, isn't only the simulation. It's what surrounds it.
My advice is to focus on the bookends. The simulation is excellent, but it's most powerful when you clearly connect it to your organizational context.Jeff Wiltrout, VP of Corporate Strategy, Cummins
Senior leaders lay out where Cummins is going, and why.
An out-of-company world, so leaders stretch without their usual expertise to fall back on.
Senior leaders lead the debrief, tying the experience back to Cummins's real strategy.
Jeff owns the strategic-thinking module and runs those post-simulation debriefs himself. That is the full-contact sport in practice: a leader who reports to the CEO, personally helping the next tier translate the experience into how they lead Cummins.
Seven years later, they're still using it
The clearest sign it works is how long it lasts. Cummins leaders don't just perform in the room; they carry the experience with them, and keep using it. That durability shows up in the business, too. Cohorts stay close long after the program, and Cummins's investors have pointed to the consistent quality of leaders coming through its pipeline. More than a decade in, Capsim has become a cornerstone of how the company develops its people, less a vendor than part of the team.
I went through the program six or seven years ago. A few weeks ago, my cohort got together, and we were still reminiscing about the simulation. These vivid experiences stick.
Jeff Wiltrout, VP of Corporate Strategy, CumminsBuild leadership development that lasts.
Book a short call and we'll map a Capsim program to your pipeline and the decisions your leaders will face for years.