The first question the 360 Assessment brings to mind for many investors is ‘why aren’t shareholders represented on the 360 Impact Map?’ After all, aren’t shareholders at least one of the important constituencies that business should serve?
Very good question. The answer is slightly subtle — and terrifically important. First off, we want to make clear that shareholders should appropriately expect to benefit from their ownership investments. Part of the ‘magic’ of capitalism is its ability to funnel self-interested capital to business through public ownership.
But here’s the slightly subtle part: when business pursues directly its own/shareholders’ financial betterment, its actual ability to deliver shareholder gain deteriorates. When, instead, business focuses on creating value for others, its ability to deliver sustainable, long-term earnings grows attractively.
Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto business school, discusses this thoroughly and empirically in his excellent book, Fixing the Game. His conclusion: pursuit of shareholder value maximization doesn’t maximize shareholder value. Even on its own terms, pursuing shareholder value directly doesn’t work.
Why is that? To quote Steve Denning, a business author and Forbes columnist who writes regularly on this topic: “A [direct, priority] focus on maximizing shareholder value leads firms to do things
that detract from maximizing long-term shareholder value, such as favoring cost-cutting over
innovation . . .pursuing ‘bad profits’ that destroy brand equity, and excessive C-suite compensation”.
The result can be seen in the disastrously declining ROA and ROIC over the last four decades (the
same time period during which ‘maximizing shareholder value’ became the prevailing paradigm for many corporations) in large US firms as documented by Deloitte’s Shift Index.

Fred Reichheld, a Fellow at Bain & Company and founder of their Loyalty Practice Group, discusses much the same idea in his seminal book, The Ultimate Question, published in 2006 by the Harvard Business School Press. His comprehensively empirical conclusion: companies who prioritize creating customer value, and treat profits and shareholder return as a byproduct, achieve decidedly superior growth and profitability versus companies who focus directly on financial return.
The Eventide Business 360 Assessment reflects, and extends, that same understanding. When business serves well its customers, and its other constituencies, it prospers attractively and sustainably. But when its focus turns inward, when it seeks first to serve its own/shareholders’ financial interests, it loses its ability to make money by creating value for others. In fact, it begins to move from value creation toward value extraction — and starts a slow slide toward toxicity.
For readers of Scripture, this should all have a familiar ring. Jesus famously says in the Gospels, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” Jesus here gives insight into the fundamental contrast between the way the people of ‘this world’ understand life and its dynamics versus the way God understands life and the way he has, in fact, structured its operational dynamics.
Paraphrasing broadly, Jesus says, “I know that you have an instinctive bias toward your own happiness, and a belief that pursuing your (seeming) self-interest is the surest, most direct way to that happiness. But don’t be misled, that pathway actually leads to ruin. Fulfillment, happiness, prosperity all lie
in the opposite direction. Seek first to serve others. You will be a blessing to them and will find — counterintuitively, and by God’s grace — your own life richly blessed as a result. Service, not selfishness, is the true pathway to life and blessing.”
So, is profitability/earnings important? Absolutely. Can a business serve its own and its shareholders’ interests well by prioritizing the pursuit of profits/earnings? Absolutely not. The Eventide Business 360 Assessment, therefore, focuses on the constituencies business is called to serve directly. When business does that well, its shareholders are blessed in turn.