Throughout her career, Bonnie Fetch has worn her share of hats – including her current one as Vice President, Supply Chain at Cummins, Inc. Her depth and breadth of experience make her the perfect example of what it takes to thrive – and lead – in today’s changing landscape. Lucky for us, she’s sharing her invaluable perspective on this latest episode. Join us as she chats with Scott about her career trajectory thus far, the keys to managing successful digital transformation, a master list of challenges ahead for supply chain – and crucial advice for current and future leaders.

Intro/Outro (00:03):

Welcome to supply chain. Now the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues. The challenges and opportunities stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on supply chain now.

Scott Luton (00:32):

Hey, good morning, everybody. Scott Luton here with you on supply chain. Now, welcome to today’s show on today’s show. We’ve got a big guest lined up big convers lined up. Get this. Our featured guest is a transformational leader. That’s really had quite a successful and eclectic career full of diverse experiences and roles from logistics to manufacturing, to product design, even human resources, and a lot more she’s lived and worked abroad has traveled extensively in particular across six continents spend a lot of time in Europe and Africa and Asia and at Cummins, which is of course, a global leader in power solutions for more than a hundred years. Our featured guest leads the company’s distribution business segment also has leadership accountability for supply chain operations across the company’s footprint in north America. That that’s a lot get this. Our guest is leading a large scale supply chain transformation, uh, initiative across both Cummins Inc, and the newly formed Cummins global supply chain services organization. So on that note, please join me in welcoming Bonnie Fetch vice president supply chain at Cumins, Inc. Uh, how are we doing?

Bonnie Fetch (01:44):

Doing great, happy new year,

Scott Luton (01:46):

Happy new year to you. We blink. And the first full week of January, 2022 is almost all all passes, right?

Bonnie Fetch (01:55):

It’s crazy how fast time’s going, but we’re not getting any older. We

Scott Luton (01:58):

Right. <laugh> that’s right. I like how you think already. Um, so before we get in into, uh, gosh, what a journey you’ve had thus far, uh, a lot of what you’re doing at Cummins, one of the, uh, uh, global leaders let’s talk about, let’s get to know Bonnie fetch a little better. So tell us, where did you grow up and, and give us a few anecdotes related to your upbringing. So

Bonnie Fetch (02:20):

I was born in the Midwest in, um, Illinois, near Chicago. I was born to teenage parents, um, but didn’t stay married very long. And I had quite a, uh, difficult childhood with a lot of moves across the Illinois Chicago land area, and then eventually to Georgia and onto Florida and back to Illinois. So most of my childhood I spent in between the Midwest and the Southeast, um, had a single mother for many years and, um, spent some time living with dad some time living with mom, um, got accustomed to fitting into new locations. Um, it was probably in, in some ways challenging in, in other ways. Good for me because as I now have a very global role, uh, fitting into new environments, learning about new people and new cultures is pretty easy

Scott Luton (03:12):

For well, and, and as a follow up question beyond kind of how that forced you into that outgoing, uh, gregarious meeting, you know, not unafraid of meeting new people, new things, new environment, what else, you know, did that tougher than usual upbringing? How else do you think it impacted your leadership ability?

Bonnie Fetch (03:32):

It definitely has caused me to be very driven, um, very achievement oriented. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be in a big role. I didn’t really know what leadership at that time was, but I knew I wanted to be in a big role and have a big impact and to not have to rely on others financially. So I always knew I wanted to lead. And in fact, I started my leadership career quite young. Um, I started working at 13 years old. Um, I started babysitting probably a little younger than that, but I started my first job in Augusta Georgia at a little place called wife saber chicken.

Scott Luton (04:10):

Right. I know this place, Bonnie <laugh>. I grew up at akin right across the river. I’m familiar with wife, saber chicken. All right.

Bonnie Fetch (04:18):

So, you know, it’s good. Best part about that job was employees got a punch card for every shift. You worked, you got a free meal and it was awesome. So I did start working pretty young, um, and, and making my own money and saving and, and buying my own things. I also, uh, was a part of RO OTC, uh, which is a reserved office training for in high school. And I was a part of the competitive drill team, which I really loved and actually thought I would have a career in leadership in the military. I met a boy and things changed. Um, but, but I think I always knew I was drawn to solving big problems, helping people and influencing in, in Broadway.

Scott Luton (05:00):

I love that. And of course, going back to a minute to the, uh, the food industry there in Augusta, you know, that notion of service and serving others and, and being right there with the, the customer as they get their product. I mean, those are irreplaceable experiences. Um, alright, so clearly I can, you can already tell based on just a little bit, you’ve shared how driven and, and kind of those early leadership lessons that, that help form who you are aside from kind of the work side of the early Bonny fetch. What one other aspect about your upbringing? What else did you have really a passion for maybe in your free time? Did you like reading? Were you a sports? What else did you like doing kind of aside from, from those formative activities?

Bonnie Fetch (05:42):

I’ve always been a writer. Uh, so I always like to write, I used to write poems. I used to write in a journal. I subsequently as an adult wrote a book, uh, which I did not think I would do when I was younger, but I always had the gift of putting words into print. Um, so I spent a lot of time there. I also spent a lot of time caring for a younger sister and brother, uh, who were several years younger than I, so I spent a good part of my childhood helping to raise them.

Scott Luton (06:12):

Wow. Okay. You, you should write another book, maybe a third. Uh, you’ve got so much, you tackled early on. No wonder you’re doing the things you’re doing now. Let’s, um, let’s shift gears a bit and move, move further, uh, into your professional journey. You know, you had a, a long career even before, uh, successful career before you even joined Cummins, Inc. But let’s talk about what got you in the global supply chain and a couple of those key positions as part of your journey that really shaped your, your worldview.

Bonnie Fetch (06:42):

Yeah. So I fell into supply chain before supply chain was even a function. So sometimes I feel old saying that <laugh>, but supply chain as a function is actually quite young. Um, but I fell into a logistics role back in the early nineties. Um, an inventory control role that I was only, um, intending to do for a few months when I was pregnant with my third child. Um, I actually fell in love with the logistics space. So I was on warehousing, uh, operation where I had inventory control responsibilities. I went out on maternity leave and they called me back several months later and we negotiated a return to a full-time role. Uh, I went into, um, what was a continuous improvement role prior to six Sigma, really being a, a corporate initiative. And I then landed in warehouse operations where I led logistics, uh, operations and receiving office operations and found that I really enjoyed the fast pace I enjoyed leading people.

Bonnie Fetch (07:43):

Um, I enjoyed, you know, building my leadership ability to help people connect what they do and the importance of doing it. Um, and, and, um, helping them to feel engaged, uh, and really giving a hundred plus percent to the company. That’s how I fell into it. Initially. Never thought that would be my career. I, I moved from that operational role into a human resources role. I had a leader that thought I was pretty good with people and asked if I would take an HR role. And I said, I’ll try anything once. And, uh, went into HR and

Scott Luton (08:15):

Let me interject really quick. Bonnie, what did that leader that tapped you on the shoulder and brought you into HR role? Was there some aspect of your, of how you interact with others or manage others or were around others? What do they see in you? Is there any, any, any specifics?

Bonnie Fetch (08:32):

Well, this particular leader said, you’re, you seem to be good with people. People wanna work for you, people wanna do what you ask them to do. Um, my productivity and performance in any role that I’ve led, um, has, has been good. Uh, and I, I don’t think that has a lot to do with me personally, uh, doing the work, but it has to do with clarifying for people, uh, the importance of the work and treating people with dignity and, um, letting people know that I appreciate them. Mm. And so consequently, he thought I would be good with a human resources role. And I found that I actually quite liked it. Um, I liked the strategy element of human resources. I also liked the people interaction and the ability to solve problems, uh, for the business, but also help people solve personal, you know, challenges. And so I spent about a third of my career in HR, um, which I, I enjoyed.

Bonnie Fetch (09:27):

And then at some point I had, um, a boss who asked me what I wanted to do, uh, with the rest of my career. And I said, you know, I really enjoyed HR, but I’d like to get back to running a business. I ran a business before I joined, uh, the logistics industry. I ran a restaurant. Um, I ran a small travel agency as, as an owner. And, um, and he said, okay, um, I’ll, I’ll see what I can do to help you move into, um, a leadership role in this HR role. I spent a lot of time in the, um, in the warehouse and subsequently in manufacturing operations. And I found that I really loved being in the operation, right. And so I ultimately had a chance. Um, and this was a pivotal moment in my career where this leader, um, moved me overseas to Europe to run a transmission business.

Bonnie Fetch (10:14):

There was an end to end business about a 400 million business. And, uh, I knew nothing about transmissions. I knew how to lead people and I had a passion for running business, but I had a lot to learn. And that was probably my big break into supply chain, cuz I had direct responsibility for manufacturing, for purchasing, uh, for really the end to end business. But those were two important components. And then from there I moved, uh, back to the us and I had, uh, the opportunity to be a GM for a very large business, right. 42 manufacturing plants, uh, about an $8 billion business. And then I ended up back in logistics. I was asked to actually lead the aftermarket parts distribution business for my previous company, which was, uh, global in nature over 2000 employees in 21 locations, very substantial, um, part of the business. And I really found that supply chain is the glue that keeps a company in business. Right. Agreed. We understand what our customers require that we’re able to plan for it. We’re able to produce it, we’re able to deliver it. And um, so I’ve kind of found my home again, which incidentally, you know, all these years later is where I actually started my industrial career. <laugh>

Scott Luton (11:32):

All right. So you shared a lot there and I wish we had about five hours of time, cuz I’d love to dive into a lot more of those, those pivotal roles, especially those massive, uh, roles of massive responsibility. I wanna back all the way up to when you talked about that leader that brought you into the transmission business overseas and you didn’t know anything about transmissions. I think a lot of folks listening can relate to, you know, if you wanna, if you wanna advance in your career, you gotta tackle things. You, you don’t know, right. You gotta lean on your expertise, but you gotta tackle things you don’t know. Is there any, anything you did to learn that business so that you could effectively lead effectively lead and, and, and be successful in that role when you <affirmative> do, uh, when you enter the transmissions industry?

Bonnie Fetch (12:16):

Yeah. That’s a great question. So the very first thing will sound a little silly maybe, but I’m the type of person that tries to figure out what to do when I don’t know what to do. And so when I knew I was going to a foreign country to lead a business that I knew little about, um, my father actually was umm, a mechanic and prior to being a mechanic, he was a welder. So he was very much in the, in the industrial world. I called my father and I said, dad, I’m moving to England and I need to come and visit you this weekend. And I need you to tell me everything I need to know about transition. And so when I arrived at his house, he had all this service manuals laid out. He was very excited, waiting to tell me everything I needed to know about gear ratio and SHA manufacturing.

Bonnie Fetch (12:59):

And the reality is I remember about 10% of what he shared with me, but it gave me the confidence that I had a little bit of context. I understood what a transmission was, the importance, some of the terminology. And then, then really I spent a lot of time in my role as the leader of the business, talking to the experts that know the job, just the best, right? The people on the shop floor, the engineers that are designing the transmissions, they know, and more than willing to teach. If you treat them as though they are the, the experts with the respect that they deserve and you’re really willing to listen and what, which is ultimately how I found my way through, um, two and a half years of leading that business

Scott Luton (13:44):

Wholeheartedly agree. Uh, I, I love the story with your dad. I bet I, I can just, I could picture that as you shared that story and completely agree, you gotta go to the gemba, that those folks are the true experts and that’s how we all get better as leaders. All right. So let’s talk, one of my favorite questions is about these Eureka moments. You, and you’ve already shared a couple of what I’ll call maybe pseudo Eureka moments, but anything else stand out, whether it’s it’s one from some of these earlier journeys you’re talking about or something, the wealth of Eureka moments that we’ve all experienced these last couple years.

Bonnie Fetch (14:16):

Yeah. I’ll go back all the way. Um, before my industrial career, when I was running, um, a, a small travel agency. So prior to the internet being a thing, um, small travel agents like myself would book, you know, airline tickets, hotel reservations, um, and, and we were disrupted by the internet in the mid nineties, uh, which again makes me feel old to talk about. I was, I was running the business before the internet was a thing. Um, but the reality is it was a lesson for me very early in my career that if you don’t find ways to disrupt yourself, you will be disrupted. And we all know stories like Kodak and other companies that didn’t disrupt themselves and they got disrupted. And so that’s really stuck with me my whole career. And I have a philosophy of, you know, always trying to encourage my organization to think the ways, particularly product organizations, but even in processes in supply chain, how can we disrupt ourselves before someone else figures out how to disrupt us and we lose market share, we lose customer confidence, whatever the case may be.

Bonnie Fetch (15:25):

And oftentimes when you’re innovating, when you’re thinking about these disruptions, people are fearful of failure, failure. And so I, I take the approach of think big start, small act fast. What’s the smallest step that we can take toward this innovation or this disruption that isn’t gonna cost us a lot of money. If we fail, we’re gonna learn from it and we’re gonna iterate on it. We’re ultimately gonna have breakthrough results. And I’ve had had many times in my career since learning about, you know, disruption that I’ve been able to unleash an organization to do things that the organization itself didn’t think they were capable of doing. And so that has really stuck with me. Um, I still today think about, you know, how, how could we be disrupted as a business? This, uh, as you probably know, Cummins very much thinks about, you know, our, our role in the, um, in the power systems world and with reliance on diesel over time, reducing with our own commitment to a carbon-free world, you know, what does that mean for our business?

Bonnie Fetch (16:31):

We are heavily investing in new technologies and in effect disrupting ourselves before we get disrupted. So I’m very excited to be a part of that. Um, and that’s just in general, a, a, a rule that has stuck with me and, and that kind of plays out in every role that I have. That that’s one that sticks out the most. Probably the other one I would say is leading people. Um, isn’t as difficult as I think sometimes people make it seem right. I think that people wanna be heard. I think people wanna understand the why behind the, you know, whatever we’re asking people to do or whatever answer we’re giving people and people wanna know that their leader genuinely cares about as a person. And I’ve had these moments in my career that have reinforced that. Um, and so those are a couple things that I carry with me, regardless of industry, regardless of

Scott Luton (17:24):

Business. I love that. And going back to your first point there about disruption, it it’s also coming faster, faster than ever before. I think of Airbnb and what it’s done, I think of, uh, Netflix and block Buster talk. There’s a lot of good stories there. It it’s, you can’t afford to sit it on your hands for a single second these days. So I love your thoughts there. Okay. So you mentioned a Cummins ink and, um, that’s a great segue now. So tell, talk to us about your current role with Cummins, Inc, and where you spend your time and where do you love spending your time related to your role?

Bonnie Fetch (17:59):

So my role a, as you mentioned before, is quite eclectic, um, and broad. And so I do have responsibility for a significant portion of our supply chain. Our distribution business is the business that, um, provides all of our sales and service to our customers. So once an engine or a gen set is, uh, delivered to a customer, we provide the parts and the service in the aftermarket, through our distribution business, uh, channel. We also service smaller OEMs through that channel. And it, it’s a very large, very large global organization with many small sites, 600 plus sites around the world, and many dealers that we also work with. Um, I also have responsibility for operations across multiple supply chain functions in north America. North America happens to be one of the largest regions in our, our portfolio. And as you mentioned, I’m leading a large scale transformation.

Bonnie Fetch (18:54):

So we’ve established a global supply chain services organization. That’s helping us to get more efficient and effective at, at many of our supply chain processes, but also looking at what we need to do for our supply chain to continue to build resilience, to continue to meet ever changing customer expectations, uh, and to in the current environment to stabilize, you know, after the shocks and the, on, I guess, ongoing shocks, it’s not even after ongoing shocks of, uh, the pandemic for the last two years, the place I enjoy spending my time most is with my people, uh, my direct team, but also I really enjoy getting out to the sites where the work is getting done, whether that’s a service shop or that’s a manufacturing environment, or that’s an office, you know, in one of our supply chain services organizations, I like to be where the work is. And I like to be out, um, visiting with customers and understanding how well, or in some cases not so well, we might be serving our customers so that we can continue to improve.

Scott Luton (20:00):

All right. So I wanna ask you one additional question and I don’t want you to get, of course, I don’t want you to share information you can’t, but when you’re leading, you know, I think a lot of folks listening can definitely relate to, uh, not just transformation, but leading change, whether it’s in their office, if it’s across enterprise, you name it. And so when you’re leading a massive transformation project that you’re leading, I can just picture the conversations, the big, uh, you know, for, for summit it’s whiteboard. If you’re visual communicators, you’re working through a problem, you get stuff down, folks can see it. Have, have you learned anything that you can share in terms of, of what helps leaders lead big change transformational projects?

Bonnie Fetch (20:44):

Yeah. I still make my fair share of mistakes, but I will say that some of the things that I’ve learned that have helped me to be successful is, um, James quote, I think, uh, uh, oh gosh, I can’t even think of the guy’s name. So I wanna try to quote him. People don’t care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. Yes.

Scott Luton (21:04):

Is that Simon Sinek?

Bonnie Fetch (21:06):

Yeah. Might have been Simon se I was thinking it was John, but I couldn’t think of John’s last

Scott Luton (21:09):

Name. We’ll double check before he published. How about that? Yeah, it’s also

Bonnie Fetch (21:12):

An author. Um, and, and what I mean by that in the business context is as an organization in supply chain, we’re at the center of the corporation trying to influence change across many different businesses. And these business, us leaders that have responsibility to deliver to customers, to deliver on our shareholder, um, obligations and, and targets. You know, they have a lot on their plate that, that they’re concerned about. And if they don’t feel that I care about their business success, they don’t really care about what kind of transformation I’m trying to, to drive. So I guess it really gets back to change management and really understanding what’s important to your stakeholders. There’s also an element of credibility, like rather than trying to implement large scale changes all at once because we’ve sat, you know, at a whiteboard behind closed doors planning and, uh, convincing ourselves that our assumptions are accurate.

Bonnie Fetch (22:11):

When in many cases there’s no way for us to know the outcome, right? My belief is small steps build, you know, design build, test iterate, you know, do things in a way that you get small scale success. And then you build on that scale at our it quickly, or as one of my former bosses used to say, build capability and then build capacity, if you build capability and you prove that it works, then the businesses start pulling on you to say, how fast can you come to my, my unit and do that same thing. And so that, that has helped me in, in the transformations and oftentimes where I’ve seen it go wrong is when a function in the center of an organization tries to push change from our perspective, as opposed to, from the business perspective, we often get that resistance, uh, from the businesses.

Scott Luton (23:03):

Hmm. You know, uh, going back to a point you shared just a second ago, gosh, if other aspects of the enterprise is asking you to bring whatever you’re doing to their site or to their operation, you know, you’ve hit the nail on the heads. I love that love hearing that. Um, okay. Any, I wanna go in a second to your visit to Stanford, uh, not too long ago and, and get some of your thoughts, Sarah, anything else when it comes to maybe a little more broader how global supply chain is transforming, how the industry is evolving right here in front of our eyes, it in the last, in, in the hour or so we’ll spend together here, plenty of change has taken place. Right. Any other additional thoughts you wanna share

Bonnie Fetch (23:45):

There? Yeah, I think some of these changes were changes that were, were inevitable before the pandemic, but certainly the pandemic has, um, created a lot of reason to go back and, and rethink, you know, supply chain strategy. So certainly, you know, very global supply chains. We will always have global supply chain, but I think there is going to continue to be moved toward more regional supply chains, given some of the trade issues that we’ve had over the last number of years, given certainly the logistics challenges, the transportation challenges that we’ve seen throughout the pandemic. Um, certainly, um, moving from single source supply to dual or a multisource supply is an ongoing trend that will continue, um, moving from a just in time kind of capability, which for decades we’ve been working to have just in time inventory to really taking a view of agile and resilient supply chains.

Bonnie Fetch (24:41):

And what are the implications on how much stock you hold, um, automation, you know, was already increasing in, in velocity, but really with the challenges that we’re having now with people, resources, I think automation becomes all that much more important for us to identify where can we take the work and automate it so that we can put people on higher level tasks, certainly, you know, preparing for uncertainty, right. There are always going to be shocks to the supply chain. Uh, we can’t always perfectly prepare for what those shocks are going to be. And so moving away from event driven, you know, kind of, um, uh, resilience to continuously monitoring and preparing, you know, how do you make your supply chain resilient, not even knowing what the future shocks are gonna be, but how do you evaluate where your vulnerabilities are and build resilience so that whatever it is, whether it’s a ship stuck in the Pinal or whether it’s a pandemic or whether it’s a trade issue, you know, how do you build into the supply chain?

Bonnie Fetch (25:48):

And I think the final thing that I would say is a continued reliance on, um, AI technology. Um, artificial intelligence know we in supply chain are data rich and often insight core. And so relying on more machine learning and artificial intelligence to take this massive amount of data that we’re all trying to consume on a daily basis and show trends and insights, uh, that we may not so readily, uh, be able to see through a manual lens, uh, I think is going to be an increasing trends and then customer expectations. And let’s face it. The pandemic has changed test some expectations in a big way for virtually every industry, right? So how do we ensure that, you know, we are able to serve our customers in the way that customers are, are, uh, going to require us to serve them, whether that’s means, you know, more of a, of an e-commerce presence, how do we make it easier for customers to get what they need easier for customers to return what they don’t need, uh, easier for customers to have visibility to when they’re going to receive the product. Um, those are, you know, they we’re on the radar already, but I think we need to accelerate our ability to meet customer expectations,

Scott Luton (27:07):

Man, that is a master list of items we just shared there. Uh, I, I appreciate that. What, and I love your comment. One of my favorite, you know, with automation being implemented at such the pace and such the skills that is, I love when I leaders talk about how let’s, let’s pick our spots and then let’s, let’s, uh, give our people the opportunity to add more value and do more meaningful, more rewarding work. Let’s tap into some of their abilities, maybe that their current or previous roles haven’t been allowing them to do. So I think that’s thes way of looking at, uh, the automation opportunities. So appreci sharing, all right. Let’s shift gears. I love when executives, uh, go back to, uh, students and classes, universities, high schools, you name it and offer their perspective and, and, and challenge ’em and, you know, tell stories. You never know what door, what window, what epiphany you’re gonna create that could change one of those students journeys, right? One of their, they could uncover one of their interests. So you, I believe were back at Stanford a few months ago. Uh, some of your old stopping grounds, I believe, um, talking strategy culture amongst other things with students. So one question is, um, any exchanges with your, with the students there that really stick out to you?

Bonnie Fetch (28:26):

Yeah, it was a really interesting conversation. And what stuck out to me were, you know, the insightful questions that students were asking, you know, when I was in university, I was not talking about culture. I was not talking about diversity and inclusion. And to some extent I was talking about leadership, but not to the depth that these students were. So they were, were very interested in learning about, you know, the culture at the companies that I had led, um, interested in understanding how to balance company culture with a drive for more diversity and inclusion. So we spent a lot of time talking about diversity and inclusion in part, because I’m a pretty vocal advocate or diversity and inclusion, uh, in part, because I think, you know, it’s, it really is on their mind. Um, and then a lot of questions about, you know, leadership and, um, things that they should be thinking about if they start their leadership career, uh, is a really engaging conversation for me.

Bonnie Fetch (29:21):

I always find, you know, I go to give back and I often walk away in, in these kind of conversations. Cause you know, students ask questions that challenge me a thing. Uh, a few of the students caught me afterwards and, you know, wanted to talk to me about their own personal experience, particularly young women, you know, that are very interested in supply chain and inspired to see, you know, a woman in a senior level position in an industry that’s male dominated. Um, and so, you know, I’m always happy to, uh, provide opportunities for mentoring and, and learning from my experiences and also my mistakes. But, you know, I think what stood out to me most is just how, how, uh, up, up to speed, they were on current events and, and this true interest in as a leader, how you craft a culture where people wanna work for you and where you can attract the kinda diversity, uh, that we’re seeking to

Scott Luton (30:15):

Attract. I appreciate you sharing. And I’m gonna circle back to, uh, some of those conversations you had in, in a question, uh, just here in a moment, but speaking of culture, I am a big culture. Nerd love studying it as we, you know, try to create and optimize and always improve the culture we have here at supply chain. Now it’s really important to me, in your words, Bonnie, what’s one element to culture that you believe really inspires, motivates and liberate a workforce.

Bonnie Fetch (30:43):

I think there’s a number of things. If I had to, if I had to name one, I would say that people want to feel like they belong and that they’re appreciated. I think they also want to have a clear purpose. They wanna know that what they’re working on is actually important and they wanna understand in how it links, you know, upstream and downstream. They, as I said, wanna feel heard. So, you know, I found oftentimes as very transparent leader that even if I’m delivering a message that people don’t particularly like, they appreciate the transparency and they appreciate the willingness to listen to the feed. The, that might be that they really don’t like and engaging, you know, unapologetically in this conversation, whatever the topic, um, and truly hearing people, um, and, and listening to people, even if at the end of the day, we decide to do something that they don’t particularly agree with.

Bonnie Fetch (31:39):

If they feel heard, um, they feel good about that. And then the, the appreciation can’t be underscored enough. And by appreciation, I, I, I’m always careful to say it. Isn’t about just the, the thank you that doesn’t have any meaning behind it. It’s appreciation in terms of giving feedback about specifically what the individual did, why you appreciate it and being heartfelt, being genuine. Um, and then the final thing is people like people, leaders in particular that are authentic, right? People want leaders that walk their talk that say what they mean, mean what they say and the, the real people, right? Make mistakes, own your mistakes. The number of times that I’ve had employees say to me, like your authenticity and your willingness to say it, when you make a mistake is truly inspiring, you know, tells me that what people want is to know that the people that they work for care for them, and they’re real. Hmm. It seems really simplistic, doesn’t it <laugh>

Scott Luton (32:46):

Well, you know, but, but, but it’s accurate. And that is that’s. You gotta give the people what they want. And, and one of the big things that we hear time and time again, whether it’s, uh, culture at organizations, whether it’s is content, whatever it is, they want real people having real conversations and AU uh, that authenticity. So I appreciate you sharing that recipe for part of that recipe for crafting the, an empowering culture. All right. So now I should have, I should have moved this question. Speaking of owner mistakes, I should have kept this question right after, uh, your Stanford comments. Uh, but it a, it is what it is. So if you’re speaking to a room full of students that really wanna break into supply chain, right. And move up the ladder to executive roles like yours, two part are here, general advice that you might offer ’em. And then speaking of your time, and those smaller circles at Stanford were, you’re having those conversations with other women that wanna get into what is still a male dominated industry. And especially as you move up the, uh, into the executive suite, the disparity gets massive. What advice would you give that, that captive room of, of, uh, students? Yeah,

Bonnie Fetch (33:55):

The first thing that I would say is no one will ever care as much about your career as you did. And I actually didn’t really, and truly understand that until I was about mid-career. I was about mid-career when I said, I want to run a business, I want to be a senior leader. And then the leader that I worked for made it happen for, I am certain that if I didn’t say that, if I didn’t own career journey, I may have had opportunities. I’m not sure I would’ve had the opportunities that I ended up having. So the first thing is clarifying what you want and not assuming that people know, but actually being willing to articulate what did, what is it that you’d like to do? And it may not be a specific position. I always encourage people to think about influence the type of work you like to do, cause roles, change organizations change.

Bonnie Fetch (34:47):

So, you know, being focused on a particular role in, in, in general doesn’t work, but being focused on how you’d like to be able to influence an organization. You know, when I had this, this opportunity to say, I wanted to lead a bit, I also said I would like to be an executive, helping to run a company, something. And it was a little scary to articulate that. Cause if you say it out loud and then you don’t achieve it, it’s disappointing. Um, I’ve been, of course, you know, very blessed to have great opportunities and, and I’m now helping to run a company. And, and so that’s the first thing own your career, be vocal about what you wanna do, and then be willing to do the hard work, which sometimes means take a sideways move sometimes means step out of your comfort zone, go do something you don’t really feel comfortable with.

Bonnie Fetch (35:39):

And you might actually fail and, and be willing to get breadth of experience. Once you’ve got some foundational expertise. Um, I think taking those risks calculated risks or, you know, safe risks, conservative risks. However you wanna say it is really important. I mean, big breakthroughs in my career have been times when I thought I am definitely not the most qualified person for this job. And I’m scared to death that I may fail. Those are the big moves that have been game changers in my career. I think the, the last thing I would say is invest in people along the way. You know, if you wanna be an executive leader, I don’t care what industry you’re in. You’re not in the business of manufacturing, transmissions, manufacturing, engines, designing product. You’re in the people business. When you lead people, you are in the people business. And so first and foremost, as a leader, you need to understand what it means to be a leader. And do you want to care for other people, genuinely care for other people help other people succeed? Not everybody wants to do that, right? Not everybody’s is, you know, has a desire or, or is cut out to be a leader. But if you are, you have to be willing to invest in people along the way.

Scott Luton (36:54):

That’s a really important point. The really last one, you may aid, cause it’s not one size fits all. You know, you have a wide range of, of, of plethora. <laugh> I should use that word, use that word in a long time of, of career aspirations, right? Some folks have no interest of advancing into the challenges that are part of the executive suite. So I think, um, adding maybe to your list is understanding your audience and, and what their objectives and motivations are. Bonnie. This is home, this is gold. This is not just supply chain gold it’s leadership gold. All right. So how can, if folks want, want to connect with you, maybe they want to pick your brain. Maybe they wanna check out your book. Maybe they wanna learn more about, um, all the cool things that Cummins is up to, uh, these days. How can they connect with you in the organization?

Bonnie Fetch (37:44):

The best way to connect with me is on LinkedIn. I do have a pretty good presence on LinkedIn. I post a lot of blogs. I share a lot of Cummins news information. And so that’s probably the best way to connect with me. I do get, I have quite a few followers and a lot of people reach out for, for advice. And so a little bit of patience. I can’t get back to everybody right away, but I do pride myself on getting back to people. Uh, and then cummins.com is a great place to check out. There’s a lot of exciting things happening at Cumins right now, not only in the product sense and our, our path to zero, but also our focus and actions to improve, um, our diversity and inclusion within our own company, but also in the communities that we live and serve in. Um, uh, we, we just have a lot of terrific and exciting things happening and, um, and a lot of opportunities, uh, with 2021 being the great resignation, all companies are, are challenged with, um, continuing to look for great talent and we are right there with everyone else. So cumins.com/cruise also has, uh, all of our current opinions.

Scott Luton (38:50):

Wonderful. I appreciate you sharing and, and to our listeners, Hey, if, uh, you heard it straight from Bonnie Fe here today, that type of culture and, and challenge and industry you name it appeal to you checkout, uh, the, the, the website there, Bonnie, a pleasure to finally connect with you. I really appreciate as busy as you are. Goodness gracious. You got three full plates right now, but as busy as you are, thanks so much for carving time out with us. He here today on supply chain now. Thank

Bonnie Fetch (39:17):

You. Its my pleasure,

Scott Luton (39:18):

Seth. All right. We’ve been talking with Bonnie fetch, vice president supply chain at Cummins, Inc. Uh, folks hopefully enjoyed this conversation. Another masterclass, uh, not just in supply chain, but, but global leadership hopefully enjoyed it as much as I did be sure to connect, uh, with Bonnie and with Cummings Cumins to learn a lot more and Hey, check us out. Supply chain now.com. If you like conversations like this, of course you can subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your podcast from. But most importantly, if you hear one thing beyond, I’ve got about 18 pages of notes here, Bonnie of really good, actionable takeaway from our interview, but Hey, be like Bonnie, do good. Give forward. Be the change is needed on that note. We’ll see you next time. Right back here at supply chain now. Thanks everybody.

Intro/Outro (40:02):

Thanks for being a part of our supply chain. Now community check out all of our programming@supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to supply chain. Now anywhere you listen to podcasts and follow us on Facebook. We’ll LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. See you next time on supply chain now.