David Novak 0:02 

Welcome to the How leaders lead insight series and I have to tell you the day we have a very special discussion coming up. It's a conversation about work life family balance. Now, I got inspired to do this episode after reading my good friend introduce book entitled My life in full work, family and our future.

Now everyone knows that Indra is the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, and Indra and I both work together before she became chairman and CEO. And before I became chairman and CEO of yum brands, we were both part of PepsiCo, and we loved it and, and we had a lot of great times together and I admire very much, I saw firsthand in action, and she is absolutely fantastic as a leader. And as I thought about I thought it'd be fun and insightful to hear how we both think about work, family and diversity. And with Indra, obviously, coming up the ranks as an Indian female and me doing the same as as a white male. I've asked my daughter Ashley, a working mom with three incredible children, if I do say so myself as a proud grandfather, ask her to join us and conduct the interview, so that we could get a different and I would say, current perspective on this important issue. So let's get started with our conversation. Indra. Thanks for joining me, and congratulations on your outstanding book. I love the title, my life in full.

Indra Nooyi 1:42 

David, thank you for having me on this podcast. And I have to tell you, I was so excited about doing this because Ashley is going to be interviewing me and to me, this is the best thing that could have happened. Okay,

David Novak 1:53 

great. Great. Well, you had the idea. So I'll give you the credit. Let's turn it over to Ashley.

Ashley Butler 1:58 

Well, thank you, Indra. And thank you, Dad, I really appreciate this opportunity. I do feel like my life is very full. I'm so curious to explore this topic. And this is going to be fun. And Indra. I loved your book. I couldn't put it down over the last three weeks as I was trying to find moments to read it and pick up chapters. The first thing I have to ask you that cover is absolutely beautiful, that picture of you. What are you thinking in that picture?

Indra Nooyi 2:25 

So this is that picture of me I struggled with for a long time. Annie Leibovitz, the great Annie Leibovitz shot that picture. And it lasted two days to shoot 16 hours, and she must have shot about 2000 pictures. But she gave me this picture is what's going to be undercover. And it had a hairstyle for me that I'm really not used to little disheveled hair, and sort of a little bit of wisps on the, on the on the forehead. And I was worried because it looked like I'd forgotten to comb my hair. But in reality, she was trying to get some movement out of my hair. And I showed that picture to my mother who says, Well, why didn't you comb your hair? But you know, what is interesting. And he has now taught me that having my hair perfectly crafted look like a wig is not the greatest look, you have to create a little bit of movement in the hair, in order to give yourself a more sort of trendy look. So I'm not trying to be cooler in my old age, myself.

Ashley Butler 3:27 

Well, it's absolutely beautiful. So thanks for sharing that story. Can you tell us a bit about why you wrote this book?

Indra Nooyi 3:34 

You know, I never intended to write a memoir that was just not in the cards. I was going to write a series of policy papers and what it's going to take to grease the skids for women to ascend to positions of seniority in companies because people kept asking me why don't replace myself with a woman. And that made me think about why didn't a woman bubble up the top? When I was at PepsiCo? I yield a lot of women to other companies. But why didn't they wait around to be CEO of PepsiCo. And then I realized that the pipeline was broken, a lot of the women came into the workforce and then quit the second or the third level in the company, because they couldn't balance motherhood and being in a very intense job. So on the one hand, I knew we had to do something for those women in managerial jobs. On the other hand, a lot of the frontline workers, the essential workers who are young family builders also struggled during the pandemic, to come to work being caregivers, nurses, teachers, you know, working in retail or hospitality, but they didn't know who was going to take care of the children because the care system was completely shut down. So we had this dual problem both with the essential workers and with managerial workers. And I realized we had to do something to develop a strong care infrastructure for all of these people. So I was going to write a set of policy papers. But I was told nobody would read the policy papers because they're boring by themselves, unless I use the arc of my life to inform the policy papers. So this is a non traditional memoir, and that there is a whole bunch of tell stories. It's more the arc of my life lessons leading to the moonshot, which is how do we develop a care infrastructure?

Ashley Butler 5:15 

You have a really interesting moment in your book that I just wanted to ask you about. Can you tell our listeners about the evening that you came home to tell your family that you would be the next president of PepsiCo? Can you share that story with us?

Indra Nooyi 5:29 

Yeah, so let me draw the lessons from the story. Also, I came home late in the night and I just wanted to share the news with my family that I was going to be president of PepsiCo and on the board of directors and there was my mother waiting at the top of the stairs, saying, I don't want to hear any news, just go and get some milk. And I go, Why me, you could have asked my husband who seems to have been here much earlier, or he looked tired, he will get the milk. So I went and got the milk. And I sort of was upset with her. Why don't you let me share great news with you instead of saying, Go get the milk. And she said to me something which I've never forgotten. She said, When you enter the house, you're a mom, your wife, your daughter, daughter law, leave your crown, the garage. I don't want to hear about President Obama. I don't know what that is. Leave the crown vicarage. Now, I'll be honest with you actually, at that moment, I was pissed off, because my point is, let me enjoy my few moments in the sun, just Cleveland, just listen to me and enjoy mine. You know, news. But then she was also telling me that you've got to be humble. Because when you're at home, you and your husband have a very different responsibility than what you have to the company. So she was giving me a lesson in humility, priorities, and basically saying, don't try to come into the house and think all of us work for you. We don't your mom, his dad, play those roles. When you come into the house. It was a tough lesson, but I got it.

David Novak 6:54 

That's funny. Because when I come home, Wendy always tells me she says you're not co around here.

Indra Nooyi 7:01 

What she's telling you leave the crowd in the garage. I

David Novak 7:04 

love that. That's a great friend.

Ashley Butler 7:06 

So let's talk about work life balance. I mean, is this a real thing? Is this a real term?

Indra Nooyi 7:11 

I don't think so. The word balance is what I worry about, I think is juggling priorities. Because, you know, you start off the day saying today I'm going to focus on my work in the evening, I'm gonna go home and do something. And then during the day, you get a call from the school. Oh, what if your kids fell and sprained an ankle or they're not feeling great, all sudden, your priorities have gone to hell, because you've got to juggle the day again. So I think work life balance may be a tough word is juggling all priorities related to work in life. Now, let me say one thing, though, there's one good thing that came out of COVID, it's technology development, we can now have access to zoom and teams and all of these teleconferencing tools. And our cell phones become so much more advanced, we can FaceTime, we can text, we can talk to our kids all the time. So unlike when David and I were coming up in the corporate world with the world, these technology tools, you had to be present, you had to travel. Now, you can actually do a lot of things remotely, I would have killed to come home at 330, taking my kids off the school bus, spent an hour or two them and then continued working at home, that luxury was not available. One had to travel one had to go meet people. I couldn't prioritize not traveling versus traveling. And so I think that in my time, work life juggling was impossible, I think in today's world, is much more possible.

Ashley Butler 8:41 

Yeah, I completely agree with you, it's been so interesting to see how much I've gotten to know my co workers families better and how I've experienced being on these zoom calls, you see their kids pop in and out. And there's permission for that. I almost feel like now because all of us were trying to educate our children at home, while we were also working. And so there seems to be more permission to know and to have your family involved in your work.

Indra Nooyi 9:06 

Very, very true, except that what we cannot allow happen is for the mother, in particular, to be so stressed out because they have to do so much. And they're always begging for, you know, internet time or broadband access because everybody's on the web doing their respective jobs. So we have to make sure we also create structures to de stress mothers and women in particular, so that they're not just completely sort of zonked out and end of the day because they've been handling five priorities all through the day, and there's no safe spot for them to go and just focus on the job, or whatever. So we have to think about future of work very, very differently.

Ashley Butler 9:48 

Yes. So I'd like to kind of jump into talking about family because that was such an important part of your book. And I know you both are family people. You love your families there you is your favorite accomplishment? So can you set the stage and tell me a little bit about your immediate family?

Indra Nooyi 10:06 

Well, you know, I grew up in a very tight knit family, I grew up in a conservative family, a family that believed in discipline, our family that gave me a very nurturing environment to grow up in a family where they believe that the girls and the boys should be equally educated and allowed to soar. So we will not discriminated against, which is very unusual. The other good thing is I married to somebody who believes that he is an equal partner in the marriage. So we both contribute equally to caring for the kids, household duties, everything. And I've married into a family where the family in my in laws, all belief that I should be allowed to work. So nobody has held me back. And then I look at my own family, between my husband, my kids, they're my life. And between my mother, my in laws, they've all helped take care of my kids. So this has been a multi generational family structure. And everybody has intergenerational responsibility to help all of us succeed. And I think of all the things I've done in my life, I would say my family's my biggest success that I feel good about. It's not that it's challenges. Don't get me wrong, when you have two daughters is always a challenge. But oh, boy, Mom was always the punching bag. And so having two daughters, who both vocal mom is a punching bag first when interesting now and then some our dads get a bye. I don't know why moms are the punching bag.

Ashley Butler 11:44 

It's like, well,

Indra Nooyi 11:45 

I got it. I got a note of that.

Ashley Butler 11:47 

Yeah. I wonder if you had a son if it would have been a different experience as well?

Indra Nooyi 11:52 

I think so. I think there would have been a little bit less punching bag, behavior. But that's okay. I still love my kids more than anything this world.

Ashley Butler 12:01 

For sure. Dad, can you talk a bit about your upbringing and how it shaped your perspective about work?

David Novak 12:07 

Well, you know, my mom and dad are 92 and 91. So I'm really blessed to have you know, I'm still in my life and just saw him in Scottsdale this past weekend, which was really great. But I grew up in a very unusual environment. I actually grew up in a trailer. My dad was a government surveyor, we moved every four months, my mom would check me into the school and say, Hey, David, we better make friends because we're leaving. And that was the case. But I lived in small towns up and down the United States and lived in 23 states by the time I was in seventh grade. And but I always had just so much love for my mom and dad, they taught me how to love and respect the family. I had two sisters and an inner when we get together as a family, no matter how big the house is, the biggest house we had when we grew up was eight feet wide by 46 feet long. We sit in the same sofa clump together hugging each other. So a really close knit knit family. But you know, I was very, very blessed to have the upbringing that I have people. So how could you? How could you lived in that environment? You know, and I always tell everybody, I succeeded. Because of my environment, not not in spite of it. It was it was I think one of the best things that ever happened to me, my, my mom and dad wanted me to live the American dream, I was the first kid to go to the go to college in our family. And, you know, thanks to a lot of great mentors and people who took me under their wing, I've been able to live that American dream.

Indra Nooyi 13:38 

And David, you're one hell of an American dream, because I think going to so many schools made you become more social and more resilient. And that's the David that I've seen, and I've enjoyed interacting with, but you're raising a much bigger issue, which is the importance of families, families are needed for young people. And in today's world where, you know, families are fragile, families are messy, and people don't have, you know, the traditional families around them. How do we recreate social infrastructures and communities, so people can help each other out? It's a big discussion we need to have at some point

David Novak 14:12 

in your soul, right? Because, you know, if you have a mom and dad that loves you, you're so far ahead of the game, you know, and, and I know Ashley feels blessed that she had Wendy as a mother and hopefully me as a father and you know, we're, you know, just having an only child. You know, we've just done everything together. And I think having that infrastructure I always say if you have a great mom and dad and you're born in this country, at least you have a chance you know, you have a chance to succeed and, and grow. And my mom and dad I have to tell you to this day along with Wendy and Ashley. They're my biggest they cheer for me all the time. You know, I can go on Squawk Box and they'll call me and say oh, my mom say You look so handsome. Your tie was wonderful. And you're so smart. I go I don't know if I ever know but thank you

Indra Nooyi 15:00 

had never dealt with there are so many single parent families, there are so many families where, you know, things are not as rosy as they could be. The real question is, how do we create community structures that allow those young people to have family like relationships in society, within communities, either through libraries, civic centers, park benches, whatever, so that they too can feel supported. And they can feel like they can go to somebody for love and affection and reinforcement.

David Novak 15:32 

I couldn't agree more. And one of the things that, you know, Ashley leads is, you know, in our lift ally Foundation, and you know, we focus on helping elementary school kids to get their self esteem, a lot of times they don't get at home, you know, like, understand what they're super talented, their talent is put their heart into it, that becomes their superpower. And then, you know, in high school, we have this program called Lead for change. And it's all about teaching people how to take people with them, understanding their background, what's you know, their life, how it's impacted them, and given them the encouragement that they need to go forward to make a difference in the community. And I think we, we've all got to be looking for ways to build the self esteem of people and help people, you know, really understand that they've got the capability to grow.

Indra Nooyi 16:16 

And I think in today's digital world, where everybody's cocooning, how do you get them out of their cocoons, and actually come out to these places where people meet socially, you know, libraries, park benches, parks, barber shops, restaurants, how do we get people to sort of interact with each other and talk to each other, there's a big, big need, that's really we should take advantage of.

Ashley Butler 16:42 

Yeah. And another thing I just really appreciated about your book is how you continuously revisited the family structure and the support that women need to be able to work and earn a living for themselves. Because a lot of what I've done with our work with the family foundation has been around early childhood education, the majority of brain development in children happened from birth to age five. And so that's just a critical time in a child's life. And so it's really important that we provide support for early childhood education. And a lot of that support is around building high quality childcare system, that supportive of working families, where those people that are working in those childcare centers are equipped to deliver just a strong, solid environment and education to those children that they serve every day. So it's a really important issue. Well,

Indra Nooyi 17:32 

I agree with you, and we have to pay them right. I mean, one thing that surprised me was that many childcare workers get paid less in grocery store clerks who themselves not pay to well, and then many of them take jobs after the childcare jobs in another shift, right. That's a that's a tremendous price to pay. These are people taking care of our most vulnerable little babies. And so I think that we ought to rethink the whole childcare infrastructure, we have an opportunity to create ubiquitously available, high quality, affordable childcare systems, in whatever structure we choose to put it in whether homecare or center based care. But I think we really have to think about this otherwise, I don't know how we can deploy the smartest women in paid work to get the economy moving.

Ashley Butler 18:20 

Yeah. Yeah. It's a really important topic. And I'm glad I'm hearing more and more people talking about it. And I hope it continues.

Indra Nooyi 18:27 

Yeah, I hope so too. I think we need your voice to actually, next generation.

Ashley Butler 18:32 

I'm trying I'm trying, I've been talking you doing talking about this for the last 10 years. But now finally, I feel like especially with all the American Recovery, money that's coming to cities, cities are having these conversations. So

Indra Nooyi 18:45 

they should be spent wisely. There should be spent wisely. Yeah.

Ashley Butler 18:49 

I mean, it's if philanthropy can not do anything with the amount of money that we have compared to that influx, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I agree. I want to get back to your upbringing just a little bit more. I'm really interested, particularly in what your mother's taught you about work.

Indra Nooyi 19:06 

You know, it's interesting. It's my grandfather, my mother and father, three of them together. I watched the mother work all the time. You know, she was always busy at home. She was not a mother who hugged you and said, I love you. I love you and all that stuff. I mean, she barely had time to talk to us because you're always cooking and cleaning and catering to the elders. I don't believe any of us in that time of growing up, had appears in other families where the mothers or fathers hugged them and said, I love you. So we didn't grow up being told me I love you. We just assumed they loved us to pieces, because, you know, they did everything for us. So we knew they loved us implicit love. It was an upbringing where, you know, my mother would make us do things like a dinner time when she was having a dinner and we had finished and say, give me a speech about what would you do if you're the Prime Minister To the contrary, the chief minister of the state, and then the end of dinner, when we gave her the speech, she would pick a winner. There was never you know, last yesterday, it was a sister today's got to be you. There was no, you know, one day, each of you will get the prize, the best speech got the price. And this prize was a tiny, tiny piece of chocolate, I mean, tiny, it could barely see it, okay. But then when you were given this piece of chocolate, you licked it for hours, because it meant something to give me a bar of chocolate, a gigantic bar of chocolate doesn't taste as good as that tiny, tiny, tiny bit of chocolate. So, you know, she in a funny way, she made us be aspirational. She made us think about being bigger than we could ever be, wherever aspire to be. At the same time. She said, however, I'm going to get you married at mom house is going to work. But you know, this is a societal pressure was this her own dreams for her daughters. And she played that role. With great aplomb, I must say, she's still around, I'm blessed on that.

David Novak 21:06 

My mom was always like, my coach. I mean, she, you know, when I had anything that was important school weather giving my first speech on idealism of America, she coached me through it and work with beyond, and was right there with me. And I remember her being there when I was crying when I didn't win. And she still thinks I should have won to this day, you know, but she, but my mom, she's a very hard worker. And, you know, I always would see my mother, actually, when I would go out in the restaurants because I would see people who were so committed to what they do. And, you know, my mom, and we moved to Kansas City after living in all these small towns, you know, my mom and dad needed to become dual income winners. And so my mom did things like she was a Avon salesperson in the in the neighborhood. And then she ran the bookkeeping for a small company. And then she ended up being a controller of another other small company. And she's totally self taught. But I always felt my mother, if she would have had the education, the training that I had, she could end up running a company as good as my father. But it's just, you know, I had the the breaks of having them to help me kind of move forward and begin to achieve.

Indra Nooyi 22:23 

You know, David, listening to talk about your parents makes me emotional, because, you know, they work their way through whatever they're doing to give their children a better life. And it's just us kept you grounded. Absolutely.

Ashley Butler 22:35 

I wanted to kind of get back to talking just about your early years, because I I'm really curious as I think about my daughters, and I think about the way we talk about careers, what were your dreams for your career when you were younger, and your family, not just your career, but your family? Did you have any idea of what you wanted?

Indra Nooyi 22:53 

You know, actually, everybody in my family worked in a government job or a bank or a lawyer. So this notion of business didn't exist in our family at all. When my sister went to business school, she wrote the entrance exam on a lark, she didn't think she was going to get in and nobody thought she was going to get it. She just wrote it, because it was such an unattainable, you know, seat. She wrote the exam, she got in into one of the most prestigious schools were sort of blew everybody away. But now put the pressure on me because he's a year ahead of me, we were intensely competitive. If I had not written the entrance exam for the other school and gotten in people that have said, she's a success and interests a failure. So the only reason I wrote that business entrance exam was because I had to keep up with my system. Fortunately, I got in, and the rest was history. But I have to tell you, she was the real brains. And she's the one that changed the trajectory of our thinking to say, there's something called business. And I don't believe I sat down anytime and said, I'm going to be CEO of a company, but I didn't know what that meant, was always let's do the job. We're doing very well. The next one will come about, let's do the job. Well, something will happen in the next job. So it was never a question of plotting the arc. And saying in five years, I've got to be a, you know, a senior vice president 10 years and EVP those were just impossible, because we didn't know what that was.

David Novak 24:23 

You know, for me, I really found out what I loved at the University of Missouri where I fell in love with advertising and marketing. And once I found that I knew I wanted to get in and I was just like you and I had to get a job. My first job was a copywriter and a small advertising agency and it was sort of like that was it that got me started. Then I looked at like, what was the next job? And what was the next job the next job and next thing I know somehow I ended up CEO of yum brands, but it just was a constant progression of pursuit of learning and trying to get better at whatever we do. Indra Did you have any vision for How many kids you'd have? Or what's your family be like, in addition to your job?

Indra Nooyi 25:03 

No, I knew I wanted to get married and have kids, but I didn't have any vision or plan to have two kids or three kids or whatever, you know, I would have liked to have more kids, you know, because I love I love kids, but then I was in a car accident and all that stuff. So a lot of things got delayed, you know, but also coming back to what you were saying, David, in every job that you did, you excelled, you worked at that job. And you excelled at it. And that gave you the right to go to the next job. So you know, you have to demonstrate excellence in the job, including a parenting, you know, having my two kids is a bigger test. And so, you know, whether you want to have more kids or not, you've got to pass the test with your first two kids. And I'd say 50% of time, that's a great mom, the other 50% of say, Mom, come on, she was not even there. So depends on the time of day that you get them.

Ashley Butler 26:00 

Yeah, and curious it as we move on in the conversation, just to talk about the early years when you both had young children. I mean, did you feel the pressure to do it all,

Indra Nooyi 26:10 

of course, all the time. But because I had Raj and we sort of divvied up all our responsibilities equally, actually, we would sit down to calendars and plan out the next three months, six months, which family member we're going to import from India on a vacation for three months to help us out and then go back. Those days, it was very tough to get visas and all that stuff. So we sit down and and plan these days and months and years very, very carefully. And if at any point in time, both of us were not going to be home or one of us was not going to be home because we made a commitment that one of us will always be home every night. And if at any point both of us were going to be away, we made sure that a family member was at home, it required a lot of planning, a lot of planning. And because we couldn't talk to the kids face to face, it had to be through landline telephones those days, if you even know what it is. I do I know you had to we had to plan life very differently, very differently. And, you know, somehow it all worked out. But my hope is that this next generation doesn't have to struggle as much. So I think my own commitment to my kids is, I know what I went through. I know everybody wants, I want grandkids, you want kids. So whenever you choose to get married and have kids, we have to make life easy for you. Not go through what we went through.

David Novak 27:33 

It's interesting, you know, when we got married, when he told me we'd never have children, because she was a diabetic. And she didn't think it was possible. She's a type one diabetic. But after nine years, she said, David, I want to have a baby. I said, Well, you can't it and she says I've been to the doctors, and we think we can give it a try. So she, you know, she got pregnant. And and you know, after six months, she was like bed rest. And at that point time, I had to take over a lot of things in the household. And for the I think that was when it really hit me Oh, my gosh, she's been working as a sales representative for a television station, doing a great job, picking up the laundry, picking up the you know, the groceries, doing the bulk of all the stuff that really ran the household. And now all of a sudden, I was doing all of that. And it really opened my eyes up to just what a working mother has to has to go through. And you know, all the stuff she was doing. And I think from that point on, I became a heck of a lot better because I was more empathetic with everything that she was going through. And, you know, I always really counsel everybody to make sure that you divide the responsibilities and that, you know, the tasks are not male and female, their family tasks that need to be shared.

Indra Nooyi 28:53 

I think that's a very important line. David, I think when we start talking about kids and all that stuff, we've got to make sure people realize it's family, not female, very important line. And I have to tell you, there was one time in my life early on, where I took 10 days off and I said I'm just going to stay home not work and see what it's like to be, you know, mother at home full time. In two days. I was exhausted, exhausted. There's so much work in your own all the time. And there's no break. You know, you find things to do clean, the house organizers organized that you're driving all the time. You're the driver, you're the organizer, the cook the cleaner, you're everything. So I think we all owe a debt of gratitude. To mothers at home, especially mothers don't work outside the house and don't have a break from work. We really owe them a debt of gratitude. You're right, David. Yeah, you're right. I fully agree with what you're saying.

Ashley Butler 29:51 

Yeah, I think it's really interesting that you did that sit down ahead of time because I feel like that's my Sunday night ritual is getting out our whiteboard and planning out what our week will look like. But it helps me maintain some mental health, I think knowing that everyone's cared for. So I think these conversations with your spouse are really important. How did you all intentionally build alignment with your spouse around these roles and responsibility? I mean, was that a conversation you had early in your marriages? Or was it something that developed over time? And what advice would you give to us about how to do that,

Indra Nooyi 30:26 

pick your spouse very carefully. Because many times you end up falling in love with somebody, you marry them without really knowing how you're going to navigate life, you think luck will carry you through life sometimes does, but in many cases, it doesn't. And so I think it's important that upfront to have the conversations on, I intend to keep working, both of us are going to contribute to creating wealth for the family, we have to make sure we understand that families are fragile. And we have to make sure both of us have the economic means to keep the family going. And it means you're going to have to contribute to childcare, not just money, time, and effort. And we both have to address adversity together and the joys together. And you've got to make sure either family does not interfere. You know, the parents of both husband and wife don't interfere in that discussions. Because in many Indian families in particular, actually, the boy's parents don't like to see the daughter in law working. So in my case, I had the opposite. I had in laws, who said, Let's support her. We're so proud of her. Let's never keep working. And they were my biggest biggest tailwinds. So I think it's important that you have this conversation, they don't have you. And when they had this conversation before you got married, or you just assumed

David Novak 31:46 

I think we had loved carrying the day for a while until we really got into our jobs and our careers. And, and then you know, Wendy woods, she made a lot more money than I did early on in the career, and then she had health issues. And we had the baby at Ashley Yeah. And then all of a sudden, she's gonna stay at home. And you know, and I think we worked our way through the process, but my feeling is, is that you know, marriage life, it's, you know, you're with your partners. It's sort of like being on a teeter totter, you know, you're never 100% You're never equal, you're never really balanced. There's always somebody that has to give more as things go up and down. And I think that what you want to have in a marriage is that sometimes you're gonna have to give more than the other person and you just do it because you know, you have to, and you want the other person feeling the same way. And I think that's how Wendy and I basically stayed together over the years, and she's had a lot of challenges and but together, we've always been in there to support Ashley every way we could, and to support each other, with whatever health issues that we have.

Indra Nooyi 32:50 

That David beautifully put, I think if both people in the marriage Skok stayed committed to each other, and the kids, okay, in the family unit, stay committed to it. And stay committed to the fact that you work your way through adversity. It works on fine when you see, you know, breaking up as an easy way out. I think that's when things get messy.

Ashley Butler 33:11 

Indra, you mentioned earlier, just kind of talking about some of the standards that are put on women and the responsibilities. I was reading your book watching a softball game in between softball games for my daughter's tournament, and I had this mom come up to me, and she looked at your book, and she was like, Oh, I've been wanting to read that. She goes, does it all address mom guilt. And I can't tell you how much I have women talk to me about mom guilt. You know some story about how bad they feel about this or that. Can you tell me do you think mom guilt is like a real thing? And how did you combat it?

Indra Nooyi 33:46 

I didn't combat it. I lived with it. Yeah, I think we have a perfection gene. It's not just guilt. We have a perfection gene. We want to be the best mom, we want to be the best wife the best executive the best everything. It's not possible because they're all full time jobs. So in the course of juggling, we're actually making trade offs. And with every trade off comes a twinge of guilt. So you live with that all the time. It takes real effort to dump that guilt. And you know, if your chocolate chip cookie delivery to school is not perfect when it's your turn to do cookies. You feel guilty. Okay, forget it. A chocolate chip cookie with us round or shapeless still tastes like a chocolate chip cookie. We have to forget all this and go, Hey, it tastes good. Eat it. So I think we have to let go of the perfection gene. And, you know, sort of make life easier for us to come back at something actually. I think our sisterhood has to get stronger. Women have to form strong sisterhoods where we tell each other It's okay. Just don't worry about it. You deliver chocolate chip cookies, right? Half of them look like oh Australia or South America doesn't matter. As long as some looked round like the world, that's all that matters. They all taste good. It's a lesson in geography to the kids got, don't worry about it, you have to find humor in everything you do otherwise the guilt over comes in takes takes you over. Definitely. But men also go through guilt, believe it or not, don't talk about it.

Ashley Butler 35:24 

Right. I mean, that was my next question for Dad, did you ever feel guilty? Did you ever envy the female role?

David Novak 35:31 

Well, I've always been a person that wanted to be two places at one time. You know, it's like, if I was out of town, doing something I wanted to be home, you know, and it's like, I've always had that pulling all that tension through throughout my life.

Indra Nooyi 35:46 

That tug is what causes guilt. Ultimately, I think if people like you men in in the halls of power, can say, we're going to support women, we're going to make sure they're not treated differently, we're going to make sure that if we spot an equal treatment, we're going to nip it in the bud, the world would be a better place. And I think women in particular, won't have the burden of being treated differently at work and carry that home, then you feel even more guilty. Why did I go to the office, when I'm treated like shit, and I come home? I think you always have to look at it through the lens of would I want my daughter or wife to go through these experiences that other people are going through? And the answer is no, change the environment. So we've got to make men in power people like you to stand up and say, we're going to stop this unconscious bias at work. Yes,

David Novak 36:37 

I agree. And you know, things happen when you have female executives on your team, you know, it's like, I remember coming into young one day and an airline, our chief people officer says, hey, I want you to come down and see something. And you know, I'm really proud that she did this. But she created the daycare center it, and we went in there and she did this, but you know what, I have to be honest, wouldn't have been on my top 10 list of something that I would have personally done. But she knew it was needed, she took ownership of it, she made it happen. Okay. And I talked to Tracy skeins who runs our HR function at yum. And, you know, we have baby bonding. Now, four weeks vacation, as soon as you hit the door, you know, these are things that, you know, wouldn't have been necessarily top of mind for me. But I think when you have that female voice in your company, that strong and really will make the statement, you start doing the things that you need to need to have done. So you're maybe it wasn't top of mind for me, but I have a great appreciation and empathy for you know, the importance of having women in positions of power to make these things happen. And

Indra Nooyi 37:44 

I think we have to put families, family builders, women into the core of all these discussions, not keep them fringe. And we have to bring empathy and humanity into the workplace and decision making.

Ashley Butler 37:57 

I'd love to talk about work a little bit now cuz I feel like we're we're headed in that direction. Indra in 1994, there were no female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies. And honestly, I don't know how many women actually recognize that stat. You know, I wrote it. And I was like, that's, that's crazy to me. And then I kept seeing on Google, you know, the press, just screaming about how we had 41 female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies in 2021, and two of them were black women. And the press was acting like this was such an accomplishment. I look at that. And that doesn't feel like much progress. So really, what do you think it's going to take to get more women into the C suite?

Indra Nooyi 38:38 

Oh, to three things. One, we have to develop the pipeline. We have to make sure women stay in the workforce. Women are wicked, smart. 70% of high school valedictorians are women. More than 50% of the top grades from colleges are from women. In STEM disciplines, women have one whole point of GPA more than men. Women are getting more professional degrees. Women are hungry, they want economic freedom, they want the power of the purse. So we have this wicked smart talent pool at a point when we want the best and brightest be working in our paid jobs so the country can move forward. You know, I look at MIT where I sit on the board, actually 47% of MIT engineers are women. Wow. And so Caltech, Georgia Tech, there are 30 35% women. So women are really doing extraordinarily well. So we have to find a way to deploy them in the workforce, but keep them in the workforce. Women leave for several reasons. One, they don't know how to balance, motherhood and the job and we haven't made it easy for them. Second, they just tired of things like unconscious bias in the workplace. The fact that there is no pay parity many times and so I think we have to remove all of these barriers that exist in the workplace. So women don't see their confidence being stripped through things like unconscious bias, and once you strip confidence, it strips the competence. So we have to make sure the workplace is friendly to both men and women, it's friendly to the best talent, not just friendly to the definition, the ideal worker of the past, who happens to be a man, but the ideal worker of the future, is just a talented person. It doesn't matter what gender they are, or what ethnicity of color. So we have to start thinking in very different ways. And so if we did that, I think we would keep more women in the workforce, create a better environment, create care support structures. And I think, you know, humanity will come back to companies, purpose will come back to companies, and we will have a much better version of capitalism that's practiced. Actually, maybe you should be CEO.

Ashley Butler 40:53 

You know, I mean, I've always aspired to lead an organization. I think, for me, I also really, if you were to ask me, when I was a child, I wanted to be a mom. That's what I wanted to be, I was very set on, that was my thing. I feel like I found a nice in between right now, that really works well for my family. But I do know the sacrifices that I'm going to have to make if I continue to grow in my job and in my career, so I'm realistic about it. But I also sometimes don't want to take that step forward, just because I know the time that I have right now with my children is limited. And so I am hopeful, though, because I do feel like this conversation and more people are talking about it, I feel like that was one of the blessings of COVID, if there were any, was that people are starting to recognize how challenging this is, and that there needs to be more pathways and supports behind getting women in the workforce.

Indra Nooyi 41:53 

But actually, actually, you made some great points, because you're right, it's got to be allowing choice, whoever wants to do whatever they want, if they want to balance work, and motherhood, we should give them the choice to do it. If you want to be in the workforce, we should give them the choice to do it, we should give them the support structures to do it. So it's about choice. This is not about mandate to have to work, or you have to stay home. This is about enabling choice. And that's really what we're talking about.

Ashley Butler 42:19 

I think it's kind of interesting. In your book, you talk about the flexibility, stigma, you know that that that is a challenge for women in the workforce. And you know, sometimes I wish men recognized all the challenges that women are facing, and when we're trying to work and how we're getting things done that yes, sometimes we might require some more flexibility. But that doesn't mean we're going to do a bad job will probably double it. But that's pressure again,

Indra Nooyi 42:46 

well, you're right, because I'm worried that if the rules of the company are whoever wants to come in, come in, whoever wants to work from home, do it, you shouldn't end up with a situation where all the men come to work. And I had women work flexibly, in which case, we're creating two classes of citizens. Now we're all in the early days of deciding what the future of work is going to be. I hope it's more rule based, which says, this group comes in two days a week, and this group comes in three days a week, the next time. So I hope it's more rule based. So no group feels like they were separated into those that went the office and visible versus those that worked remotely. I worry about this a lot.

David Novak 43:28 

You know, the two skills in are that are so critical today, for successful leaders, the ability to have empathy, the ability to collaborate, and, you know, all the research that I've seen, says that women have those skills in spades compared to men. And I think, you know, finding a way to showcase that is can be critical for women and men is that as you climb the ladder, and it's going to be hard to do that at home. Yeah.

Indra Nooyi 43:58 

And you know, we're not talking about men or women, we're talking about all the talent, talent doesn't matter what gender ethnicity you are, the best talent has to be deployed for the, for the future of the economy.

David Novak 44:10 

I like that definition. I think it's the best talent, not male, female is the best talent. And those are the people that should be moving ahead and taking on more and more responsibility.

Indra Nooyi 44:20 

That's right, Indra, I'd

Ashley Butler 44:21 

really like for our female listeners to just get some advice from you about how to handle yourself in the workplace. I know I've been in situations where I've been called Honey, I've had people talk over me. I even occasionally get asked if I'm in high school, and I know I look young, but I'm starting to get a little bit older. So I think that's going to go away soon. But I do have a high voice I've been told on the phone to get my mommy when I was like 15 years old. These things. These things stick with you, you know, and so I'm wondering what advice can you give to women who are working and in these situations? How should we handle these interactions

Indra Nooyi 44:59 

I I think one of the problems we have in our society is that in every part of the world, women either too tall or too short, too fat or too thin, the the high pitch to too low pitched, it doesn't matter what you are, you're always labeled and talked about as if you're just not adequate. That's how people view women. In fact, things like, if somebody delivers a breakfast cupboard and wrap the wait for the woman to open it, even if the woman is a senior, most executive, the men will open it. I mean, these sorts of gender behaviors prevail, even today. Now you've got to find ways around it, I'll be honest with you, one, you've got to get competent Speak for yourself, at the end of the day, you've got to be as good if not better than the other people in the room. Because at the end of the day, competence is what carries today. But let me give you a couple other survival strategies. When you see that plate of bagels and doughnuts in the center of the room waiting to be opened and nobody's opening it. If you choose to open it, take the plate, go out, pick yourself a doughnut, leave it far away, and then come back and leave it far, far away. So if anybody else wants dollars, they've got to go and get it from there. That way, you're not you're not trying to be the person that's acting as the service person. I remember many meetings, they would expect that I was going to write action items from the meeting, even though I was a fairly senior executive, the junior men wouldn't write the action items. So I said, Okay, I'm gonna teach you a lesson, I would write the action items and put deliverable dates. And why does action item was important, but I spun it in my own way. I put in dates that I thought made sense, people call me and say, but those are not the dates we agreed on. I said, we never agreed on any dates. That's the problem. So I gave you dates. So if you want me to write the action items, I'm going to spin it the way I think makes sense for the company. From my perspective, that was the last time they asked me to write action items. So we all have to develop our own skills to say, Okay, if you think I'm good enough to write action items, let me add value to it. So I think it's important that we develop our own survivors structures. However, there is no substitute for our sisterhood. Our sisterhood has to help us navigate through all of this, if we see other women being treated differently, we've got to stop and say, Hey, why are you rolling your eyes when she talks? Why are you talking over her? Or somebody should say, are you waiting for the women to open the trade, they're not going to? Let's all join together and open this tray guys. Or let's take turns you know, we'll pick our name from a hat. That person's gonna open the tray. But we need strength and numbers.

Ashley Butler 47:43 

I'd love to ask you under you talk about competency. Do female leaders have the luxury of making mistakes? And can you give an example of an epic fail you might have had or a time when you failed? How did you come back from it?

Indra Nooyi 47:57 

You know, when women leaders make mistakes, they're judged more harshly than men. And I'll also tell you that if something went wrong in PepsiCo, even in a division, we always said, Indra Nooyi CEO of PepsiCo, and they ascribe the blame to me when something went well. And if it had been from corporate, they would say it's from the division or from somebody else. So in some way, or shape, the mistakes always find the way to my feet, which is okay, I was deaf enough to handle it. The thing is, exterior, you have to show that you're very calm, you're resilient, and you have the courage inside, you probably mad you churning. And it's okay to go and shut the room and shut the door in the bathroom and have a good cry. Because I've seen men throw things around and four letter words, just bless you out. I couldn't do that. Because had I done that I would have gotten a reputation I wouldn't have liked. And so I would think those four letter words inside, but go to my bathroom, just utter it and have a good cry, put some makeup on and come back out again, looking very calm and collected. So these are all coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, women have to still operate by different set of rules unless you want to be Brandon. So it's how you develop your own set of coping mechanisms and who's going to be your support structure, when you really need to let go and say you won't believe what happened to me today and at work. Let me tell you, and somebody just listens to you doesn't judge you just gives you advice and says, calm down. Who's to pass?

Ashley Butler 49:38 

There's one question that I really just I think our listeners would would really benefit from You both seem to be mentally stable and healthy individual. At least from what I can see. I know that pretty well. But how did you take care of yourself and your body while finding time to work?

Indra Nooyi 49:57 

I think co jobs are very, very very stressful. You have the resilience, you have the backbone, you have the courage, you have the support structures to navigate through these difficult jobs. Or you should not ascend into those jobs because you can't come into the CEO job and then develop resilience, you come into the CEO job because you have resilience. Sometimes you don't even have time to take care of yourself, you don't have time to exercise, you're traveling too much. So you need all the wrong foods and you miss meals, and you do all the things we say is bad for, you know, healthy living. Where I feel again, optimistic, Ashley, in today's world with more technology available, I think you can actually balance a good life, a healthy life with a stressful job. Because, you know, we can work out while we're talking, we can build a zoom call and work out, we can FaceTime people without having to go visit with them. And so I'm very, very optimistic of what technology is going to do to enable, you know, any leader who's got enormous responsibility today, somehow stay healthy mentally, physically, and be healthy at work, in terms of decision making, and navigating through incredible environmental issues to the geopolitics, supply chains, social issues, they have to navigate through a lot. I don't know, how did you manage to

David Novak 51:25 

I think it's just an enormous amount of stress. And I was in the food industry. And you know, I grew up in an industry where Colonel Sanders ate a chicken wing in every restaurant, he visited that day. And I thought, Well, I'm gonna go and win out when the franchisees over and I ate a chicken wing. And every restaurant I went into, I go into nine or 10 a day. And the next thing I know, I weigh about 235, okay, I kind of lost the balance. And I realized that I had to, you know, get better balance. And actually, it led to us getting healthier foods, we got baked chicken and KFC and my own personal experience, so I could start eating fresco tacos and, and, you know, so I started having products that we could, we could help balance out the life, but it was also something that our customers wanted as well. So we eliminated the veto vote by having some healthier foods for people, which we needed to get at. So I had to balance that. But I always tried to work out every day, find time in the morning, that was very important for me to get my workout in and stay balanced by having quiet time, you know, prayer, just meditation. That would help me get my mood elevator up so I could go to work and be semi tolerable to work with.

Ashley Butler 52:35 

In your book, Indra, you talk about a lot of the male advocates and mentors you had. And dad, I know you had the same throughout your career. Indra, I know for you that had to be interesting to have a male mentors take such interest in you and help you to continue in your journey up the corporate ladder. But what advice would you give to men and women in leadership positions about ways to advocate for each other? Especially how can how can men advocate for women and minorities in their organization?

Indra Nooyi 53:06 

I think you should mentor somebody because you see something in them. It's a real talent. And you think that little bit of help, they can go far and contribute massively to the company or the world in general. You know, somebody goes to somebody and says, Will you be my mentor doesn't mean anything. Mentors pick you. And mentors, pick people, irrespective of gender or ethnicity, they should pick the best talented keep, I keep coming back to this, pick the best talent, pick the best people you think, are going to do great for your entity of the country or society as a whole. That's how my mentors picked me. They were not just mentors. They were supporters. They were promoters. And they're also my biggest critics. When things didn't go right, boy, did they tell me off? And so I think that I benefited from that. But as a mentee, my responsibility was to the mentor was to listen to them. If I didn't listen to them and didn't take their advice, I'd go back and tell them, why didn't take it. So it was a mutual respect for each other. And I treated all my mentors with great respect. I think that's what people forget. A mentor means investing time and effort in you. Treat them with respect. Always give them feedback about why you're not feedback, tell them why you didn't do what they suggested you do. Keep that avenue of communication open. And if you did that, you will find a more productive mentor mentee relationship.

David Novak 54:33 

You know, I think being a mentor. I agree if you want to venture the special talent, but I think one of the things that is your CEO or your high level of the organization, there are special talent out there and if you can focus it, and you know, all things being equal. I tried to focus on finding the female that I thought that was going to grow, finding the you know, the black person that I thought they really had the potential to Go forward. Because, you know, one of the things that I realized over time is that when you have, you know, minorities moving up the organization, it's amazing how many people they take with them. It's amazing how many, you know, like we had one person run operations, who was black. All of a sudden, we had some fantastic black operators in our company that moved up and took on more and more responsibility. So I always I really, I have to tell you, I was biased, in terms of how I would spend my mentoring time, so that it would be focused on on minorities, because I thought that that would give us the biggest payoff in terms of making an improvement in an area that I knew we had to get better at.

Indra Nooyi 55:44 

No, David, I think you did a very, very good job. And then But your point is very well taken that when you elevate people who, you know, never got to these positions of power. Now people look up to them as role models and say, I too, can get there. And the environment changes because people now learn how to work with diverse people. And they no longer exhibit the kinds of behaviors that felt a little bit awkward in the past. So you're absolutely right. And I'm glad you did what you did, because you're known industry for having mentored great, diverse talent.

Ashley Butler 56:16 

Another question that I had was in this might be a chicken and egg situation, but just hear me out here. Do women need to ask for things? Or do men need to notice that women need them? Things like a pay raise more flexibility parental leave? What advice would you give our male and female listeners?

Indra Nooyi 56:35 

You know, this is why we have human resources departments. You know, a woman should never have to ask for pay parity, human resource should be looking at every job all the time and saying, Hey, there's a man and a woman in the same job. Why is the woman getting paid 5%? Less? First of all, even the woman finds out it may be too late. Okay, so my point is, we have to go back and ask the Human Resources functions, what is your job, your job is to hire, train, develop, retain the best talent. As part of retention, it's paying them the right wages, parity with the men for the same job, nobody should be discriminated against because of the agenda. And nobody should get an edge because they represent the ideal worker of the past. And the new ideal worker gets treated differently, don't do that. So I think that the time has come for us to hold HR functions responsible. And HR functions sometimes mirror the CEOs thinking boards have to make sure the total the top is right. And they should put CEOs in jobs who take this issue very, very seriously. And look at it on an annual basis to say, are we treating all our employees fairly? And I think this is something that, you know, is a skill that some companies do very well at other companies don't, the time has come to take this very seriously.

David Novak 58:05 

You know, I agree with you. And, you know, I always viewed I know, I was a CEO, but I always viewed myself as a chief people officer, I felt like I was in charge of talent, I was in charge of the work environment. And that if we created a special place to work where people felt valued, it was going to be because I was going to make that my top priority. And I find all the great CEOs I talked to, they do that. But you have to have an advocate, you have to have an HR leader who can who can really carry the ball for you and make sure that happens. If nothing would make me matter, then if I would see a high talent, female, you know, who's doing a job better than the male. And she's making 10% less, I mean, I would get rip, you know, we'd have our people planning processes. When that happen, I would go nuts. But you know, it's funny how people it's okay, as long as it's not you, okay? You know, if you're the one that's getting, you know, discriminated against on the pay or whatever, then it's a problem, okay. But you got to have people really have their antenna up to make sure that that doesn't happen. And I have to tell you, I think a lot of leaders, and a lot of HR people are tone deaf, you know, they just don't get

Indra Nooyi 59:15 

it. But I think this is where the change has to happen to change has to happen. But I'll be honest with you, actually, before this change happens if a female notices that a pay is not parity to somebody else doing the same job, you have to ask for it. There's no question about it, you have to because if the HR departments aren't going to sensitize everybody, we got to sensitize people ourselves, okay? But remember, when you asked for it, you have to make sure you get it. If you don't, that creates a different sort of cloud for you and for the company. So I would come back and say HR departments have to step up to the plate. How did

David Novak 59:52 

you ever get over and I read your book, you know, you found out that you know, some people like myself, okay, You got a ton of options, you didn't get the options. How did you cope with that? I mean, because I'll tell you, that's the thing that always I never really cared about money, have never cared about money, money came to me the only thing I was was competitive. Okay. So I kind of said, if this inner new is getting this, then I'm gonna get this. Okay. You know, and, you know, how did you cope with the fact that you found out these guys were making a lot more money than you,

Indra Nooyi 1:00:26 

you know, until at random and became CEO, okay? When he just adjusted everything. I mean, he was just a great guy that way, he said, I can't believe that your pay is not at this level. He gave me a big raise lots of options. Until then, I was just happy to be in the room. And most of the problems are because of my cultural upbringing, strictly my cultural upbringing, which basically said, Just do the job and shut up. And the money I was making, David was more than I've ever seen. So never asked for it. And I knew everybody was getting options like you won't believe it. And remember those days I was doing the spin off of restaurants, all of those food service, thank you very much casual dining properties. And also spinning out the bottlers buying Tropicana. I mean, I was working 24/7, with little babies. And I would always be surprised that, you know, I wasn't getting those options. But at that point, I said, You know what, I was making more money than I've ever seen. And I was the only one of its kind of in those halls of power. And I was not comfortable asking for money. I was just not which I vital in retrospect, it was a mistake. But I was just not there. Later on. I made sure that never happened to people around me.

Ashley Butler 1:01:46 

Good. I'm curious, as you talk about the human resource function, and some of the changes you would make. Is there anything if you went back to PepsiCo to be CEO, or dad, if you went back to Yum, brands? CEO? Is there anything that you would do differently? Or is there a particular focus that you would put on that function for the future?

Indra Nooyi 1:02:07 

I would basically say, let's put women family builders and families in the center of our discussion. Even if we didn't have COVID, we started the discussions on what support structures are we going to provide? Just like David, we had on site, a near site childcare for a lot of PepsiCo facilities. But you know, for the factory workers, we didn't have that much support. If I'd stayed around, I would have thought about how to cooperate with other factories in a particular area, and provide childcare for factory workers. And so I think the discussions would have advanced a lot more on providing support to families to be able to juggle work and family and somehow not carry the guilt of work at home and home at work. So I'd have worked on that. I don't know, David, what would you have done? Well, you

David Novak 1:02:53 

know, I think I would have tried to do what I think a lot is happening right now at yum brands, you know, I, I'm so pleased that we have 12 weeks of baby bonding, you know, I think that is just like and that the you get four weeks, you know, right out the door. And the thing that I was really excited about four weeks vacation, see, just the thing I was really excited about is that our restaurant general managers also get that 12 weeks of baby bonding, or close to it, you know, in the old days, it was just the headquarter people and not necessarily the people in the factories and on the front line. And so I think, you know, spreading it, you know, spreading this care, spreading the fact that everybody needs it at every level of the organization, I think is something I would work on. And the other thing is, I found it very interesting. Indra. You know, when we were spun off from PepsiCo, I went to go see Roger, Enrico and I remember it was on Martin Luther King Day and I made this presentation on why I should run the company, etc. You know, but I remember walking up those steps at PepsiCo and I was on the cobblestones. And I was like, This is the greatest device. This is so beautiful. These I love these cobblestones. I've locked it up. I think it's great. And then I read in your book, okay, that you got rid of the cobblestones and and I thought it was a great thing for me to say okay, if I was going to go back what would I do? You don't think I'd be more empathetic because tell everybody why you got rid of the cobblestones? Wonderful. I think it's a great male female thing.

Indra Nooyi 1:04:28 

So you know and Pepsi Cola we did put in 12 weeks of maternity paternity leave flexible work hours on site near site childcare, adoption benefits. So we really did everything right for families, but on the cobblestones, you know anybody with heels? Always got the heels cotton cobblestone. So women were tiptoe, whatever here it was. But men also said their shoes would get scuffed in the cobblestones Bob Morrison used to talk about it all the time. And expensive shoes would be gone in a while so you walked in with sneakers and shoes. changed into heels. My point is Ryan, why don't you have cobblestones in a female friendly company? So guess what we're going to change the cobblestones. So I kept the cobblestones the side, change the, you know, the walkway into a flat stone that looked architecturally good. Now Don Kendall, who put those cobblestones in and was very proud of it, saw that and he freaked out. He said, who messed up my cobblestone. He went to Roger, he started to say who the hell touched my cobblestones and Roger goes, not me, it's Diandra, you know how she is. But you know what? Don never came and talked to me about it. But his wife then wrote me a letter saying, Thank you. Thank you for doing this.

David Novak 1:05:45 

Oh, that's great. Man. I think it's a great story. Because, you know, there are a lot of things that you just don't you don't know, or you don't you don't sense. And you know, that was a great story for me. And it made me think that if I was going to go back and see I would try to look for those kinds of signals, be even more aware of them and do whatever I could within the company to to make our place as family friendly and female friendly as possible.

Ashley Butler 1:06:13 

I just have a question about women like re entering the workforce, like Brenda Barnes is a great example of someone who, who left her job as president of PepsiCo, then came back as CEO of Sara Lee, right. So what can companies be doing to make it easier for women to come back if they left because there's so much knowledge, so much experience, you know, how do we get them back in the workforce.

Indra Nooyi 1:06:38 

So there used to be something on the mommy track. So it was an on ramp and off ramp to left, right. And if you wanted to cut back, it was stuff. Now people actually talking about a return ramp, because you're realizing that the women who stepped on the workforce are extraordinarily well educated, very smart. And just because we have to have kids, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be back in the workforce. And in fact, it became even better organization and juggling when they went off to have the kids. So most companies now including banks, the big investment banks are saying, how do we create a return ramp for all these women, or men who choose to take time off to be with their families, to somehow come back to the job. Now, there are two things to think about there. If you're willing to come back with a different cohort, meaning, let's say you went in a new class of 19. So let's say your class of 2015, when you stepped out, you might come back and be in the same cohort group is the class of 2020. You should feel bad, okay about it. That's one second, companies can do another thing. They can keep you connected to the company while you're gone. Send you little reading packages, send you material to keep up to date on the company. So you're not completely out of all the developments, that when you come back, you feel somewhat connected to the company, and you can pick up where you left off. But if you want to go to some other company, that's also an option. I think in the next two years, ready to return initiatives are going to be the normal, we have a talent shortage in the country. And we have so much talent is just figuring out a way to bring them in and retain them in the workforce.

Ashley Butler 1:08:18 

Real quick, you have to do this really fast, because we don't have a lot of time. Favorite family meal.

Indra Nooyi 1:08:23 

When we sit down and have breakfast on the weekends. I make the Indian breakfast and they all eat it.

David Novak 1:08:29 

They had pancakes.

Ashley Butler 1:08:31 

Beautiful, best gift you ever received from your child or spouse.

Indra Nooyi 1:08:37 

They wrote me letters telling me how special I was mostly for my children. Because they're very expressive. And they write draw pictures and put stickers with that. And I've kept all those notes. It

David Novak 1:08:48 

has to be the letters you write me every birthday and Father's Day.

Ashley Butler 1:08:55 

favorite picture of your family. Can you describe it?

Indra Nooyi 1:09:00 

The most favorite pictures my two kids in their school uniforms. And Raj and I standing next to them waiting for the school bus to come and pick them up.

David Novak 1:09:08 

It's not one picture. It's it's our family wall that we have. It's when you walk in and you see you've just basically grown up as a child and how we've grown up as a family together and all those family pictures together is that collage

Ashley Butler 1:09:21 

favorite children's book.

Indra Nooyi 1:09:24 

Oh, was it the saggy baggy elephant? I read it for the kids. So many times that one and Winnie the Pooh and the honey tree. Those are the two my god we still think we need to pull at home all the time.

David Novak 1:09:38 

Go dog go has to be

Ashley Butler 1:09:40 

beautiful. What's the best advice you ever received from your grandparents?

Indra Nooyi 1:09:45 

My grandfather told me that if you're not a lifelong learner, you will atrophy. So he said doesn't matter if you're 70 or 80 or 90, you have to remain a lifelong learner. So keep thinking you're back in school and keep your brain sharp.

David Novak 1:10:01 

That's a tough one because my grandfather's passed early in my life. But my, my grandmother's taught me to play hard and play fair and cards.

Ashley Butler 1:10:11 

That's great. Thank you. I'd love to end with a final question to both of you. Can women and men have it all when it comes to family work in life? What hope can you give us?

Indra Nooyi 1:10:24 

We have to define what is having a daughter? What does it mean? If you want to have a great job, a productive marriage and great kids, and somehow, you know, remain sane through it. To me that's eminently possible today, with all the technology and the culture and companies changing. And there's so many entrepreneurial options available for both men and women in our economy today. So I'm very optimistic.

David Novak 1:10:50 

I'm I'm very optimistic as well, you know, I've just written this book called, take charge of you how self coaching can transform your life and career. And Ender was very nice to endorse it, by the way. But, you know, I think the only way you can have it all, is you really self coach your way through it. You got to understand what your priorities are, what really gives you joy, you have to ask yourself some key questions along the way, so that you keep those things in balance. And then, you know, I think you've got to develop an action plan that allows you to live your life around the priorities and the values that you've said. And I think if you do that, you can't have it all. And I also know that I need to give myself a little bit of self coaching here. You know, it's time for us to wrap this up. So, Ashley, thank you very much for doing this interview. I know you'd like podcasting, but you're not going to take over my show, you're going to have to come up with your own.

Ashley Butler 1:11:54 

Sounds like a plan, Dad. Thank you, dad. And thank you, Indra. It's been such an insightful conversation and one that I have a lot of takeaways to walk home with. I just really, really love your book. It's absolutely wonderful. So everyone who's listening, go out and buy it today. It is so important for us, females to have someone like you to look up to. And thank you for setting such an incredible example in for using your next set in life to really drive this message about family and work home. It's an important conversation. I hope it continues.

Indra Nooyi 1:12:28 

Thank you, Ashley, you were fantastic. It's been a pleasure meeting you. And I look forward to seeing you in person. David, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.

David Novak 1:12:36 

Thank you, Andrew, appreciate you very much.

Hey, thanks for listening to how leaders lead with David Novak. Check out our other episodes and make sure to rate us and write a review. And for more information on how to become the best leader you can be. Check out David Novak leadership.com and follow me on Twitter at David Novak. ogo