Former CEO of PepsiCo on Nurturing Talent in Turbulent Times

0:00This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more.

0:42Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. ADDY OSMANI - Welcome to week two of Harvard Business Reviews, The New World of Work. I'm Adi Ignatius, editor in chief of HBR. And each week, I will be speaking with a top tier executive to get his or her views on the future of work. We're all in a transitional moment. We're trying to figure out what is the best way back to work, what is the best way to continue to collaborate and innovate.

1:36So we want to hear from people with ideas on how to do this best. So we have a great guest today. She is Indra Nooyi. She was born in India. She got her business degree in the U.S. and then is having an amazing career in business. capped by her role as CEO at PepsiCo from 2006 until 2018. At Pepsi, she was probably best known for her performance with purpose approach, which was a strategy aimed at driving long-term growth while also trying to have a positive impact on society and the environment. She's also just published a memoir about her life and work called My Life in Full, Work, Family, and Our Future.

2:18So Indra Nui, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Adi. such a privilege chatting with you. Oh, well, you're very kind. But anyway, it's really privileged to have you here. And, you know, I read your book, and it's great. It's very substantive. It's very personal. And I definitely urge our readers to, I mean, our viewers to check it out. But let's jump right in. You talked at one point in the book, you said that leaders need to anticipate and respond to shifts in culture. And, you know, I'd love to get your thoughts. Where are we right now? What are the big trends that are unfolding that you think will change the way we live and work?

2:58You know, one of the great things about stepping out as CEOs is that you can look at the whole world with the level of objectivity and really understand what could happen to it over the next few years. I believe this pandemic was perhaps the most disruptive event in the lives of most companies, the lives of most people. None of us living on the planet Earth had been through the Spanish flu of 1918. So we don't know what a lockdown, a pandemic-driven shutdown looks like. And we all experienced it as a world. This is the first time three-quarters of the world shut down simultaneously. We're only now slowly coming out of it.

3:38And one of the challenges we have is everybody's looking for answers on what the future of the work and the workplace is going to look like, as if we need to make a decision immediately. I honestly believe, this is the time we have to think about scenarios, not about one solution, but scenarios, because people got used to working from home. People got fed up of working from home. People saw children at home without going to school. People saw childcare shutting down. So we had many extraneous factors that impacted how people liked or didn't like working from home. So I would honestly suggest that we take the next year to do a whole bunch of experiments on what the future of work, the future of the workforce and the workplace could be, and then evolve the right model for the right jobs.

4:25And while doing that, there's only one caution. What we should not end up with is all the office-going workers get to choose flexibility, working from home, hybrid working, whatever, while all the frontline workers and essential workers have to go to work and don't have support systems. So we should not create two classes of workers, one which could be viewed as a privileged class and one that's viewed as, once again, I'm a forgotten class. So I think we are on an interesting point in the evolution of work where we could actually... This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments, it's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once.

5:09So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

5:47Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Evolve a new work style with humanity in the center. At the same time, we could also be viewed as ignoring the needs and the challenges of the working people who keep the economy going. So we're an interesting fork in the road. Yeah, I like your notion that we're experimenting now. We don't have the answers, but we will get the data or we'll get the experience and test that. First of all, let me just mention, if you're watching this, if you have questions yourself for Indra Nui, please put them in the chat and we'll try to get to some later in the conversation.

6:33You know, there's this dilemma that we're all working through, which is, you know, workers clearly want agency. They want to be able – they've gotten used to running their lives, you know, running their own kind of work-life balance. And now companies are thinking, yeah, but we sort of need to be together for some of that magic that happens when people are together and they innovate and they create culture. What about that? I mean, can you create and sustain a vibrant culture if you're not physically together, do you think? So we should actually talk about this in two groups. The knowledge companies, where most of the people actually come into the office, and they can also work remotely because they're all technology-driven.

7:18That's where all these conversations are being had. How many of us need to come back? How many can work from home? Totally flexibly. Do we do hybrid? Do we do it from a co-working space? To me, I'd almost say this is a discussion of, relatively speaking, a discussion filled with options. And for those people, this is where I say, Adi, we should experiment. I think companies should come together and pool their learning, constantly survey your employees, run three or four experiments in different parts of the company, and think about what it is you're trying to accomplish. Do you need people to come in because you need to develop a company culture which can only be done in person?

7:59Do you need people to come in because you want to teach them soft skills which can only be done in person? The objectives have to be crystal clear and put the objectives out for people to react to and devise different styles of working. Without that, if we just start to mandate come in for half the time or don't come in for half the time, I think people are going to get confused. Start with the objective criteria. To me, the bigger issue is what are we going to do about our essential workers? I mean, I'll give you one example. Everybody who worked in a manufacturing plant had to show up at work through the pandemic.

8:34Manufacturing supervisors, ship supervisors, plant manufacturers, I mean, plant supervisors. And then all the truckers that took the product out of the plant showed up for work every day. What happens to them? I think we are focusing completely on the office worker, which I can understand why. but we are forgetting the essential worker. I think it's important we keep a discussion going on both because a lot of these essential workers have quit the job market because they're saying, can't do it. Nobody cares for us and how we care for our families while we had to work through the COVID pandemic.

9:11So give us more support structures, give us the means to pay for care, give us fair wages. That's what I'm seeing in the economy right now. And that's what worries me the most. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. We're all trying to find the right work-life balance, and I think that consideration has changed even in the past year and a half. But I'd love to ask you, I mean, in your book, you talk a lot about work and life. You talk a lot about gender issues in the workplace in particular. But on work-life balance, I mean, I've interviewed CEOs before, and I ask about work-life balance. I say, yes, yes, yes, it's very important.

9:49And then I say, what about you? And they're, well, you know, it doesn't apply to me. I just work all the time. And that seems to be a problem because, you know, leaders need to model behavior that then allows the people who... This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together.

10:27Shop now at palmolive.com. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Support to them or further down the chain that, okay, you know, I don't have to work 24-7 to make it here.

11:07They understand that I have a life and that's okay. You, you know, you're a talented, ambitious woman who has done very well in the workplace. What's the, what does work-life balance mean to you? I, the word balance didn't enter into my lexicon at all. I looked at more as a work-life juggling. I always had these multiple balls in the air between my kids, my husband, my family, the job. In fact, I had three PepsiCo balls up in the air. And I would just hope that in the juggling process, I didn't drop anything. or if I dropped something, it wasn't the most important one. It's not easy, Ade. I mean, look, all of them have demands on your time and you only have so many hours in the day.

11:48I'm going to say something now, which I hope people don't misunderstand. I think as you get to the C-suite, many bets are off because the C-suite, you know, the CEO and the direct reports are running such big parts of the company that once you get there, your family situation is fairly stable. And what you can't expect to have is balance or juggling or whatever. You need to give the job everything because your entire company is looking at you for direction and for keeping the company out of trouble. So as I say in the book, once you become a C-suite person, all bets are off in terms of how you manage yourself.

12:30What you do is up to you. But now let's talk about everybody else. It is a juggle. I mean, it's a juggle that cannot be done unless you build a support structure around you. And yes, you should model the behavior, but how can you model it if you don't have a support structure? So you need either multi-generational family support, spousal support, or some sort of an infrastructure if you want to have a family. If you don't want a family, that's a whole different ballgame. You write in the book, and when you're writing about some of these topics, you say, I wish I were wired differently. What did you mean by that?

13:07I don't know why I am this way, but if there's an issue, until it's resolved, I just can't sleep. I'm just focused on it all the time. I mean, right now I'm focused on the care issue, and I'm researching everything I can about care. I'm totally consumed by this care issue, figuring out how we're going to support care for the caregivers, for the essential worker. The pandemic, because I co-chaired Reopen Connecticut, I saw too much up front and it's impacted me enormously. And so I am a little bit wired such that every issue of this type that I get involved in, it impacts me so deeply and consumes me till I get to some idea of solution.

13:58And I don't know yet what the solution is here, but I'm wired that way at the end. That consumes a lot of my time, a lot. There's another line from the book that I'd love to hear you talk more about. when you were writing about the unique challenges that women face in the workplace. You write, no matter what we do, we're never quite enough. Talk a little bit more about what you mean by that. You know, I have heard people talk about women in the workplace, and they usually say she's too passionate or she's not involved enough. God, she's too shrill or she talks like a man. Oh God, she dresses pudgily or she's dressed too glamorously.

14:41There's always a label given on the woman that's always extreme. In fact, I talk about the and but phenomenon in the book where when a woman is judged, she's judged for her performance. And even if it's great, it's discounted. A man is judged for potential. This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners. Sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together.

15:27Shop now at palmolive.com. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. So a woman, the performance appraiser will go, her performance was fantastic, but I'm not sure she has great potential.

16:09The man would be, his performance was pretty good, but he's got great potential. So I just don't like the fact that with the woman, it's but she can't do it. With a guy, and he's got great potential. So I think we have to change this mindset to say, we're not looking at women or men, we're looking at talent. And as you look at people, gender blind, ethnicity blind, whatever blind, and look at them as talent, raw talent to drive the company forward, I think you'll assess them very, very differently. We're not there now. It's going to take a while to get there. This is where tone of the top is going to be very important, to catch all these bad behaviors.

16:50Did you see progress over the years, or do you think we're still pretty much in the same place we were 10 years ago, 15 years ago? There is progress. I mean, the fact that there are more women in the workplace, more diversity in the workplace. And, you know, people like me were always the flag bearers for making sure we made progress. But the problem is that you need the next generation of leaders to keep moving this agenda forward. And it shouldn't be an agenda that's only driven by numbers. You know, I always say that when you think about things like diversity and inclusion, diversity is a numbers game.

17:21Inclusion is a mindset. You can't deal with the numbers without changing the mindset of the people to make people feel included. Diverse people, women, people of color feel included. So I think we've got to get to a point where the tone of the talk, you know, models the behavior of inclusiveness. And to me, that's the next big frontier. How do you get people to say this is raw talent? This is not just getting a diverse person in to show the world I have a diverse person. This is a talented person, and I'm going to do everything to keep them and have them perform. So then on the other side, you write in the book about a manager of yours relatively early in your career.

18:02You didn't seem to be saying this was an evil person, but he perpetually called you honey. What's your advice? How should someone deal with that if they're facing a situation like that? You know, it's not pure evil or pure harassment, but it's just this kind of treatment. What's your advice? And, you know, I'll be honest with you. Over time, I've been called honey, doll, sweetie by some very interesting people. Let's leave it there. As I got more senior, every time they call me honey or sweetie, when I was CEO, I'd look back and call them back, honey or sweetie. And they'd look at me surprised.

18:43Why are you calling me that? And I said, because you did. I thought we should have this honey, sweetie conversation with each other. When I was more sort of mid-level manager and I was always treated very professionally when I was working for my German boss, Gerhard. And then a new person comes in and calls me honey. He wasn't doing it out of bad intent. He was actually a very good guy, but maybe very uncomfortable because in this European company where the Europeans didn't call me honey. but I thought somebody from here calling me honey made me, I just, I didn't know what it was. I made, it made me uncomfortable.

19:21And the honey word was reserved for the women, not the, there was no term of endearment for the men. And I tried to talk to this person to say, you know, can you cut the honey out? And he said, no, that's how I referred to women. So what can I do? Just live with it. I couldn't. And I didn't make a fuss. I didn't sit there yelling. I just said, Hey, You know, fine. You are who you are. I am who I am. I think I'd go do something else. But OK, so let's fast forward. You arrive at Pepsi in, I think, 1994. All of the other people at your level, at the senior level, are men. You know, we know how the how the story ends up.

20:00But this episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more.

20:43Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Talk a little bit about, you know, that situation. No one's calling you honey, but you're in this very, very male world and trying to be yourself and trying to be effective. Male world, I was a person of color, an immigrant from an emerging market. I had every strike against me, Adi, and I wasn't dressed quite elegantly either.

21:20So I had many, many strikes against me. But remember, if you rewind a little bit, Wayne Calloway, who was the CEO, made a humble appeal to me to come to PepsiCo saying, we need somebody like you, and I'll make sure that you're mentored and developed, and I think you'll do very well because the company needs somebody like you. And believe me, the boardroom or the senior management of PepsiCo reflected what every other senior management in the company looked like. So it wasn't that PepsiCo was different. Everything looked the same in every company, because this was the early days when women were not in senior positions.

21:55The difference is that, thanks to the incredible tone on the top set by Wayne Calloway and Bob Detmer, who was a CFO, they made me feel welcome. I would say 90 % of the executives sort of included me, took me around, introduced me to everybody in the company, and they made sure they lived up to the message from Wayne Calloway, who they all respected, to say, this is somebody that I've brought in because the company needs somebody of her skill and expertise and background to change the culture of this company. And so I had to earn my stripes just because I'm there doesn't get me future fame. I had to earn my stripes, but everybody helped me on board and really move forward.

22:39And nobody treated me like she's a lesser being, can't do it. I was given very stretch assignments and asked to prove myself. And I did. So I earned my place and kept it because of competence. But the people were incredibly supportive, incredibly. PepsiCo's a fantastic company that way. So sticking on the gender topic, so right now we've seen that the burnout rate for women is far more severe than for men right now. So I guess I'm interested in your thoughts. You know, what should companies, as companies are trying to figure out what to do, the future of work, hybrid, all these big questions, you know, what can and should companies do right now to deal with this kind of trauma that I think a lot of women are feeling and have felt through these last 18 months?

23:27Yeah. The first thing, I would talk about family as family and not family as female. One of the biggest problems we have already is that when we talk about family, we say it's a female problem. It's not. It's a family opportunity for us to help nurture families and make sure we have young people to feed into pension systems and take care of the age down the road. So we have to have a different perspective on families. Second, let's understand what challenges families had, especially women. At home, you know, broadband access was highly limited. We are not yet state of the art when it comes to broadband access.

24:06When kids, husband needed access to the internet and the working mother needed access to, the working mother lost out most of the time. That was a tension point. There were no schools. So the mother became the caregiver, the school teacher, the party planner, everything. And yesterday, I was talking to Kyle Drop for the morning consult, and he was saying that men thought they had done so much more housework for the pandemic. In reality, men had only done seven points more work in the pandemic, and women were still doing a disproportionate amount of the work. So women not only had the traditional burdens they were carrying, they had to do much more through the pandemic.

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26:00Young kids, all child care centers shut down. And when they reopened, some of them, the costs were so high that families couldn't afford it. So all of a sudden, women are back, you know, predominantly women are back to saying, I can't do it. I'm collapsing. My brain is, you know, toast. I can't do it. Mental illnesses went up. People had more nervous breakdowns. And I think we've now reached a point where if you really want to look at the care infrastructure, the essential worker infrastructure, the nursing, the cleaners, the hospitality workers, they're disproportionately women, women of color.