Key takeaways from My Life In Full by Indra Nooyi
A memoir of tremendous hard work and shattering the glass ceiling!
Indra Nooyi had an illustrious career as a CFO, President and later the CEO of PepsiCo, a Fortune 50 company. She had many firsts in the journey — first woman CEO of fortune 50, the first woman of colour, the first woman of Indian origin to make a mark in corporate America and so on! In her memoir, My Life in Full, Indra takes us through her life, her childhood in Chennai, formative years and learning, scholarship at Yale, entry into the workforce via BCG, working at Motorola and finally her career at PepsiCo. The book is a testament to her hard work, tenacity, intellect and story of the American dream!
The book captivated me, her journey inspired me, her hard work motivated me and her work-life juggles as a mom melted my heart (being a working mother myself, I could relate to it so much). Here are some key takeaways I noted down which will serve as guiding lessons in my career:
- There is no alternative to hard work
- Compassion, employee engagement and loyalty are the key soft factors that contribute to the success of a company
- Every organization needs a north star that can motivate the entire organization to succeed as a team
- Women can't have it all — they have to keep their crown in the garage!
- Unlike boys clubs, there is no girls club even in the power echelons of business!
In the following article, I elaborate on each of these takeaways.
1> There is no alternative to hard work
You will come across many instances in Indra’s career where she put in a tremendous amount of hard work. She would work in the office till late, come back home with piles of documents and work till midnight and then fly to some city the next day morning — this was her routine for many months. One incident mentioned in the book stunned me particularly.
When Pepsico decided to transform its ageing IT system to keep up with the demands of the growing business, a detailed 5-year plan was created by the IT team. It needed a massive budget of $1.5B. It was reviewed by many folks and finally landed on Indra Nooyi’s desk for approval. After her approval, it would go to the CEO for final approval. It was a mammoth program with a huge budget. Despite all the reviews for months, Indra was uneasy to sign on it.
What did she do? She purchased books on enterprise systems, data warehouses, master data management etc. and studied them for 4–To 6 weeks during the December holiday. She went into details of every important aspect of enterprise systems and went back to her team in January with a list of relevant questions. She signed the program only after she got satisfying answers to her questions!
This showcases an astounding sense of responsibility and brutal amount of hard work!
2> Compassion, employee engagement and loyalty are the key soft factors that contribute to the success of a company
Around the year 2007, Indra Nooyi travelled to India to meet her extended family and mother. This was her first travel after becoming the CEO of Pepsico in 2006. during this visit, many people, well-wishers, friends, and extended family members came to wish and congratulate Indra on her great accomplishment! And she noticed an amazing pattern — almost everyone approached her mother and congratulated her on her daughter’s success. They praised her for how well she had raised her daughter and how she must have been so proud today!
After returning to the USA, Indra Nooyi pondered over this — about parents’ contribution to childrens’ success, their moment of pride in their child’s career progression and the kind of sacrifices that makes this journey possible. She decided to thank the parents of her senior leadership and many employees who were instrumental in Pepsico’s journey. For the next 10 years, she wrote letters to those parents and sometimes even spouses thanking them for sharing their dear ones with Pepsico and their sacrifices.
This compassionate gesture opened the sea of emotions! Indra received so much appreciation and sometimes even small gifts like cookies or hand-knitted shawls from parents or spouses. Few parents sent her long emails, others sent short ‘thank-you’ notes. Her team reached out to her and expressed tremendous gratitude because their parents were so overwhelmed due to this act of compassion.
This tenacious exercise done over the period of 10 years created a sense of loyalty and belonging in the Pepsico ecosystem! Such a thoughtful act of kindness by the CEO of a Fortune 50 company is a great example of employee engagement and truly represents Pepsico’s culture of “nourish, replenish and cherish” (a program that Indra started at Pepsico).
3> Every organization needs a north star that can motivate the entire organization to succeed as a team
After becoming the CEO, one of the key programs that Indra launched was called PwP (Performance with Purpose). This was based on 3 key pillars:
- Nourish the humanity and community we live in
- Replenish our environment (reduce carbon footprint, invest in sustainability )
- Cherish the people.
This program was not a corporate social responsibility that is carried out in some corner of the company. It was a key theme around which Indra planned to transform the company, position it for long-term success and ingrain sustainability in its culture.
It wasn't an easy task though, many thought it had too much element of care and criticized her as Mother Teresa! However, Indra was relentless, she built consensus across many PepsiCo departments and businesses, socialized the program with her leadership teams and key communities within the company, and talked about its importance incessantly. Indra has an audacious dream —
PepsiCo’s food science could be at the heart of reimagining the global food system!
This dream and north star vision paid off in the long run! PepsiCo R&D has become a leading food R&D bellwether. PepsiCo now manages to produce 1 bottle of Pepsi with less than 1.5 litres of water and has worked relentlessly to provide clean water to 11 million people with the help of Safe Water Network and water.org.
Indra galvanized the entire organisation around PwP program because she truly believed that,
No business can ever truly succeed in the society that fails!
4> Women can't have it all — they have to keep their crown in the garage!
Even though Indra Nooyi was the most celebrated CEO in the outside world, she had to sacrifice a lot on the family front, especially regarding the quality time with her daughters. She had great support from her mother and extended family during the early growing years of her daughters, yet her struggles are very evident throughout the book. She makes no bones to state that women can’t have it all. No matter how successful career professionals they are in the outside world, they have to keep that crown in the garage while entering the house!
One incident between Indra and her mother where her mother said above now (in)famous lines about the crown in the garage — is truly remarkable. This happened when Indra was promoted to the job of President at PepsiCo and she came back home beaming and excited to share the news. The moment she entered the house and wanted to announce this news, her mother asked her to go back and get some milk. When Indra complained that her husband is already home and he could have got it earlier, her mother thundered,
‘You may be a President or whatever of PepsiCo, the moment you come home, you are a wife, a daughter and a mother, so leave that crown in the garage!’
It is very hard-hitting and true in most women’s cases, they can't have it all!
5> Unlike boys club, there is no girls club even in the power echelons of business!
After becoming the CEO, Indra hosted the gathering of women CXOs at her place a couple of times in order to share experiences and learn from each other. Both events were very successful and memorable. But it didn’t continue and fizzled out. Women at all levels are really not consistent at networking and not lobbying for their case, unlike typical boy’s club.
It was surprising to read about Ginny Rometty — when she was appointed as CEO of IBM in 2011, one of the prominent golf clubs in the NY area declined to extend the membership to her. IBM was one of the main sponsors of the club and it was a tradition to offer a complimentary membership to every IBM CEO; yet, they didn't do it for Ginny being a woman! The fact that this happened just 10 years back and it needed a change in the club's constitution to offer the membership to Ginny — is mind-boggling!
Women don’t invest in conscious networking. This is true for women at all levels including leadership. This is the most disheartening lesson!
If you haven’t read My Life in Full, grab a copy. It is an engaging and motivating story of a woman who reached the spectacular pinnacle in her career path by breaking the glass ceiling and establishing many firsts! Indra Nooyi is a true inspiration!
