Life Lessons from a proud mother and ex-CEO of PepsiCo: Indra Nooyi
- riyapopatadv
- May 26, 2020
- 7 min read
Famous for serving 25 years in Pepsi Co and successfully being its 5th CEO for 12 legendary years, Indra Nooyi (née Krishnamurthy) has her roots in southern India (Madras/Chennai). This consistent member of world`s 100 most powerful women is an alumna of IIM Calcutta (1976) and Yale School of Management (1978) , married to Raj Nooyi, President of AmSoft, and proud mother of two daughters.
Her belief in the power of corporations, vision and tough-mindedness has historically revolutionized food and beverage industry for the good. Hence, she has been a role model to many in the business world. However, today we shall uncover the 5 magic mantras adopted by her personally providing her assistance throughout the journey of struggle and success.
1.Realizing the new definition of "ME" time.
While, outperforming every test of quarterly earnings in an all consuming job of CEO with 267,000 approx employees worldwide. She also was indulged in demanding motherhood, daughterhood, daughter-in-law-hood, and in "quasi-full-timish" job of being a partner to her husband.
This situation seems very relatable to me and to many other working women with a family who often are distressed about no "me" time. Nevertheless, her definition about "me" time rendered a not behaving stickler anymore.
In one of her interviews to Forbes she addressed the issue enlightening her perception which moved me immensely. She confirmed that like every one else she only has 24 hours in a day. In fact, it often comes down to deciding on which role to play generally at different times in a day itself, thereby leaving little or no time to hangout with herself or her girlfriends. Regardless, she considers when she is in for a pedicure with her husband, or could squeeze a spa-time along with her daughters, she is actually spending her "me" time. This is so because she believes while she is relishing the pedicure its with "her" husband, for that same matter while she is enjoying a spa its with 'her" daughters, thereby spending her "me" time.
2. Create one`s own sisterhood.
Mrs Nooyi, was floored and impressed by 'Sex in the City', a revolutionary american romantic-comedy drama television series. The series featured stunning outfits and footwear fashion it showcased. However, its basic essence of four women`s nonjudgmental, reliable and time-standing bond where each of them could openly confide about their love and sex life creating a sisterhood which is common but less unknown is what touched her. It was in such an extent that she binged watched all the 94 episodes.
Mrs Nooyi, believes that such a sisterhood among-st women could help each and all women not only manage a work and life effortlessly but also help them grow together with constructive criticism and achieve the best in life. Thus, being one of her secrets to being a celebrated CEO and admirable mom/partner.
Personally, I totally swear by "may be we (women) can be each other`s soul mates", "enjoy my success not apologize for it" , "dreams change, trends come and go, but friendship never go out of style" mantras depicted in the series.
3.Keep the "crown" in the garage.
Mrs Nooyi, believed in her mother`s distinctive teaching of keeping her crown in the garage. To understand this let us consider a small excerpt, when she was appointed as the CEO of Pepsi Co and drove back home only to see her mother shun her before she discloses the big news and asks her to buy milk. She followed the instructions without questions, nevertheless after coming back she asked her mother why Mr Nooyi who was already home wasn`t delegated the work while she had to perform it around half past ten in the night. Her mother taught her the words she swears by that women should keep their crown in the garage because come on someone has to be in the family to say lets pull everyone together to make this institution successful.
As much as this personally sounds unfair to me, I get her point of picking the battles wisely. Moreover, if me loosing some battles voluntarily keeps the family up and moving, then for the sake of harmony I would be pleased to do that myself.
4. Embrace the trade-offs.
Following up from the previous point of choosing the battles for fight with wisdom, Mrs. Nooyi suggests the trade-offs that shall come along should be embraced. So to say, while we women are juggling the work-life balance, sacrifices and hard decisions shall be a norm. This could mean missing out on a few and being innovative about the others. However, we should not allow it to consume us and understand that in the bigger picture there shall be a few heartaches (regrets), pain and collateral damage which is inevitable.
For example, when Mrs. Nooyi could not attend coffee catch-ups on Wednesday`s 9:00 am considering it to be a career suicide for working woman at her daughters school. She operated in an innovative fashion to her daughter`s complains. Actually, Mrs Nooyi, use to find out other mothers` names who could not attend the meet and argue with her daughter that she was not the only absent mom from the meetings. She considers it unfair but the situation demanded hard decisions and she made them without letting them consume her.
She considers that this situation is because women still cannot have it all. Howbeit, in order to turn this situation into a reality, not only family and community but also the society has come forward which is what my next point puts forward.
5. Setting up a Co-op mechanism for parenting and taking care of ageing parents.
Mrs Nooyi very rightfully addresses the commonly known yet uncommonly discussed conflict of biological clock vs career clock in every woman`s life. She opines that usually when its time for any woman to climb the ladder in a corporate sector is also the time when she has to step up in personal life into becoming a mom as per the biological clock. Additionally, she advocates that it is also the apt time when ageing parents/in-laws need attention. This brings young people in a difficult situation more so for women than man of course. Her experience, therefore suggests, building and following a mechanism where inter-generational support system can be adopted along with effective delegation in the execution of mechanism would kill two birds with one arrow i.e. child care and care of ageing parents at the same time.
To explain this further, let me give you an example from her life that included quintessentially Asian model of family which helped her. Let us first consider the quintessential Asian model of family. Basically in India (from where Mrs. Nooyi belongs as stated earlier) though with evolution there still exists a custom of three generations living together i.e. kids, parents and grandparents (sometimes parents` brother/s and his family & grandparents` brother/s and his family). This system is called a joint-family system where grandparents share wisdom with their grandchildren, parents can work and also take care of their ageing parents.
Turning to Mrs. Nooyi`s personal experience, she lived in U.S. away from Indian family employees in a nuclear set up of family. Since she observed that child care members are not certified or professionally trained it was a skeptical circumstance to handover her children`s health and safety to them alone. She and Mr. Nooyi, therefore took inspiration from their roots and reached out to the members of their family in India who also were from an advanced generation. They use to invite the members in a turn of 3 months to supervise the child care employees and 4th month enjoy a whole trip to U.S.on their expense. This served them to visit U.S. as vacation and kids were supervised. Such rotation of family members continued till their kids became capable of understanding health and safety concerns while being with Child Care employees.
Turning to another example which is apt regarding delegation under execution of mechanism for efficacious parenting. In one of her interviews, Mrs Nooyi opens up regarding this particular incident where she was out of office and engaged in a conference when her daughter called the office to seek her permission for play intendo (game) for some a while. Since she was not available Mrs Nooyi`s assistant referred to the checklist provided by Mrs Nooyi which stated certain criteria to be fulfilled on the part of the daughter. When all the criteria in the checklist was considered satisfactory her daughter was permitted to play intendo (game) for 30 min. Her assistant subsequently communicated the same to Mrs. Nooyi via text.
In my view, while embracing inter-generational support we might not be blessed with many such aged family members or could not afford their travels or so. In such a case we could use one of her another solution that suggests setting of a child care in communities where employees do their job and the family whose aged parent is available could reach out and supervise the employee for all the kids. This shall help kids gain wisdom and the family member gets to spend with kids and family. This is a successful situation as many studies have proved that aged members of a family live a longer and happier life while surrounded by younger members of the family.
However, this solution should require three important aspects:
a. Acceptance of broad family co-existence where both parties do not feel compromised.
b. Acceptance of change by the older family members to be forthcoming and adjusting in a new eco-system of co-habitation with children and changes that would come along while leaving behind their friends and style of life.
c. Acceptance of parents and kids in the family towards the older members of the family as a significant part in the family and try their best in making their adjustments smoother.
Personally, connecting back to roots and looking for help in the home rather than in outsiders sounds to me a brilliant and workable strategy. To top it all she seems to be all set in penning these ideas down which shall be public soon. I am enthusiastically looking forward to the conventionally unconventional style of parenting that the future holds.
References
Polinsky, P., n.d.Indra Nooyi.
Annapoorna, 2014.Indra Nooyi. [United States]: Rajpal and Sons.
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I liked all your views and opinions....looking forward to more where i can be more critical....
This is great writing. Keep it up......