Digress — questions, commentary, and overall thoughts
Reading this end of Feb/early March was very timely to International Women’s Day. This was a fantastic read and aligns well with provoking thoughts that should be assessed and reassessed consistently.
I’m not a big snacker, and I don’t regularly eat chips. But today I went into the grocery store and looked at an aisle that I don’t normally check out when I’m shopping. It was filled with colors of different Lays packaging — oven baked; wavy, classic, and even the Canadian special, ketchup flavored. Then as I walked further along the aisle, easy to carry variety packs and value sizes. Then right across from these chops were rows of Gatorade. It’s quite interesting how a book can change the perspective of an aisle of a grocery store. While going on with my day to day life, this book was able to change how I saw a glimpse of it. And for that, I thank Indra Nooyi.
Through this book, I learned not only about her leadership and coming-of-age story also about different leadership styles and how different companies can operate and have different vision boards. While one CEO focused on increasing top line another CEO focused on the bottom line. It was interesting to read about the different perspectives and how different leadership styles can highlight beneficial outcomes for the company in different ways.
Question for Indra Nooyi
- you knew it was the right decision to exit ABB, and described in the book the ways in which you navigated your new role. During this process, you mention that you were confident that you could find a new job quickly based on your experience and skill set, however, do you recall being anxious at all? You were certain you knew you wanted to stay in Connecticut for the sake of family, but there always lays uncertainty in times like these.
- throughout the book, you have underlying confidence in yourself. How much of this confidence do you think grew with time? Or were you always confident in yourself?
- without that phone call from Wayne, do you think you would’ve made a different choice and joined GE?
- when there was sudden change in the room, going from dismissive and sometimes even aggressive to sudden praise, did any of that ever make you feel worse about how you were treated before? What could Roger possibly have done in those few hours to make you feel supported? And why didn’t he take action to address prior to you speaking out?
- This question was answered moments after having this thought. But I still want to argue that no matter what he did, it does not justify how you felt or were treated all the times prior to this. It seems a bit unfair to disregard those actions, or even the lack of any. Not sure if he did, but a sincere apology would’ve been nice.
- A follow up question that may be tough to answer, but do you truly believe Roger was a good mentor? Yes, he may have supported you for the sake of decision making and your competence, but in many occasions in the book, he didn’t back you up, he didn’t offer you raises, company plane, stock options at any point during his time as CEO. He was your leader, and a partner in some projects, and failed to reward you for all the hard work you did during this time period, and always seemed to have demanded for more, yes for the sake of the company — yet still always taking, without giving.
- you ended chapter 7 with what your mother said. “ You may be the president or whatever a Pepsi but when you come home, you are a wife and a mother and a daughter. Nobody can take your place so you leave that crown in the garage.”
- This felt very powerful. (definitely a better word to describe the emotions and feelings behind this sentence). I want to ask, how did this make you feel in the moment. It’s funny how I proposed this question in my notes as I was reading and it was something she brought back up multiple times later on in the book. This goes to answer my question in her thoughts behind these words.
Before reading this book, working at PepsiCo didn’t even come to my mind as an option. This book not only made me think otherwise, but made me realize how wonderful it would be for a girl aspiring not only an amazing career, but a wonderful mother and family to be part of a company like PepsiCo. To know that they are striving for a culture where they understand productivity stems from work satisfaction which goes down to the roots of supporting a life and a family, it’s quite aspirational.
Indra truly left her mark by instilling great values into the company and making their culture better than when she first started. How inspiring!!
- PepStart: onsite childcare at PepsiCo’s headquarters — once I plan to have a child, I will be looking at job posts at PepsiCo;)
Why operations?
- it involves both the big picture with strategic thinking and bold moves to finding nuggets that can show where the cost savings lay. It’s the perfect place to be to learn and understand both sides of the decimal. Ugh — this is making me question if I should pivot back into something related to operations. It’s definitely something that works well with my curiosities and personality. I enjoyed the subject a lot in University as well as when I worked in strategy for operations. Perhaps one day, I will end up back in a career more aligned to this.
“Working at Federal Trade Commission: at the start know nothing about the business, but by the end, know enough to make a decision that will impact the US and potentially the world’s economy. They ask difficult and insightful questions. Don’t get paid as much as private enterprise, but work with the soul intent of protecting the American consumer from the adverse effects of reduced competition.”