My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future

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I felt that the United States did me a big favor by allowing me to come in. For whatever reason, that’s how I felt. And I felt that I had to prove that I was worthy of being a member of this country, so I always worked hard. Had I stayed in India, I would’ve continued to work hard—hard work is in my DNA. I worked hard my entire life because I wanted them to say, “She did good by the United States.” I wanted India to say, “She did good by India, because she didn’t bring any disrepute to the country.” And I wanted my family to say, “She never, ever let down the Krishnamurthy family,” which is my family of birth, and then, subsequently, the Nooyi family. I had all of these imaginary responsibilities that I took on. In the months before I left PepsiCo, in 2018, I thought about how I would contribute in the years ahead, knowing that I am one in a chain of women leaders who can help move us forward for generations to come. I set out to write a book and insisted to all around me that it would not be a memoir. Instead, I thought, I would devote every ounce of my experience and intellect to a manual When I was doing it, I did it because I was clueless about that topic and I wanted to learn more about it. The first step is to get into the details. Don’t sign something unless you understand it. And if you’re confronted with a problem, really get into the details before going to the big picture. Zoom in and then zoom out. And third, have humility. If you don’t know something, feel free to reach out and talk to people. Because what happens is typically you say, “God, if I brought in an expert to help me, then I’d realize how little I know about the subject.” Big deal. You can’t know everything about everything. Bring in the expert. Let them coach you. Sitting in your office, you might be able to ask more questions than you could in a bigger meeting. I honestly believe that getting the experts in, sitting down one-on-one, and learning everything there is to learn is a good thing.

I had a 12-year tenure as CEO, and you can either say I ran three four-year tenures or two six-year tenures. In the first six years of my CEO-ship, I was navigating through the financial crisis and creating a more In the single most valuable corporate benefit I received in my early career, the head of BCG's Chicago office, Carl Stern, called to tell me to take up to six months off—with pay—to help care for my father. (Alok - Amazing examples of EMPATHY from employers) For the lady who worked day and night, having almost equally ambitious husband, her family life seems to be too much trouble free, except for the housing and schooling issues, rest i assume is kept undercover. After finishing the book, I listened to Guy Raz's interview with her, which provides additional insight into Indra's personality and how she sees this world.

Hence I was excited to read My Life in Full to deepen my understanding of this incredible role model. Having now finished the book, I’m quite disappointed. For starters, there wasn’t anything “full “or wholesome about how the book is written. It’s quite bland in its writing, and reads like a corporate memo that has been vetted for political correctness by several committees. There was no heart, and no grand revelations. It also seemed like Indra Nooyi didn’t do anything wrong in her career, and went from one success after another. When you’re a CEO, you’re always thinking about weighty things about the company—either a decision you have to make or data you’re looking at that could impact the quarter or the year. You’re in possession of a lot of data. You have to make sure that, whether it’s at home or anywhere, you don’t leave the data for people to see by accident and then blurt it out. People don’t realize it’s highly confidential, even for family members. That’s why I use the term work juggle. Work–life juggling. Are you constantly trading off priorities? It’s when you’ve constantly got multiple balls in the air and you hope nothing drops. It’s not easy for a stay-at-home mom who’s juggling so many home priorities. It’s not easy for a working woman without a family who’s also juggling other priorities—it could be an aging parent or a relative she’s looking after or a work environment that’s hostile. Everybody’s juggling all the time. I found both aspects okay, her story as well as her opinions & advice. As many have mentioned, the book doesn’t give deeper insights on her thoughts through her various life experiences & milestones. It strangely feels guarded, like she’s trying to sound like an HBR case study.

Whenever we talk about a successful woman, we talk about all the hurdles she jumped over to reach there. While Indra Nooyi also mentions about the unfortunate situations she faced being a woman, the book is mostly about her career growth. She mostly talked about how she had been fortunate enough to always have help and support from people around in both professional and personal life. She was humble, and she appreciated people’s contributions which I believe made her a great leader.I’d never had a close woman colleague with a job like mine and had never seen a woman in a workplace who was senior to me. When a successful person writes an auto-b, are they obliged to present their life experiences as advice or lessons for others? Maybe, I don’t know. The book seems to be average on that front as well. The later chapters about her post retirement phase are filled with her thoughts & recos on issues like support for women at work, elderly care, saving the environment etc. Which again is nothing new.

I knew we could have done even more—or done it faster—if the financial crisis hadn’t tossed us around like the rest of the global economy, but we’d handled that well too. I had worked as hard For a period of six months, my team designed a training program for me. Every two weeks, a different speaker would come into my office—could be a professor, could be a China expert. They would come into my office and give me a two- to three-hour seminar session on China, along with a bunch of readings I had to do. Then the next person would come, and the next. They put a whole curriculum together. The final session was Henry Kissinger coming in and wrapping everything together to tell me the integrative picture on China. For the first time and in raw detail, Nooyi also lays bare the difficulties that came with managing her demanding job with a growing family, and what she learned along the way. She makes a clear, actionable, urgent call for business and government to prioritize the care ecosystem, paid leave and work flexibility, and a convincing argument for how improving company and community support for young family builders will unleash the economy’s full potential. Mine is not an immigrant story of hardship—of fighting my way to America to escape poverty, persecution, or war. … Still, I do feel connected to everyone who streams into America, whatever their circumstances, determined to work hard and to set in motion a more prosperous life for themselves and their families. … I still have that fear—an immigrant’s fear—that presses me to try to do well and to belong.”If you’re searching for insights into what makes great leaders and companies, this is the book for you. Though I enjoyed knowing about her journey, the book is not very engaging. She did not talk about any sensitive issues; there were no opinions - played very safe. It felt like the book is her way of showing gratitude to the people and organizations she worked with. I wish the focus of the book was more on her thoughts and feelings around her life experiences, her wins and, most importantly, her failures; which would have made it more insightful, and which I believe people are looking for from the experience of such great leaders. When I was a little girl, my mother asked me to make speeches pretending I was India's prime minister. She also worried about finding me a husband I chose Indra Nooyi's recent book, My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future, to read this January. She is one of a few immigrant women of color who ran a Fortune 50 company. I enjoyed her book very much as she wrote about her struggles with Kids, parents, married life, and her demanding career. Her memoir is quite honest and down to earth as she spoke frankly about her privileges and limitations.

quite often when I made suggestions, someone would jump in and say, “Oh no, Indra. That’s too theoretical.” A few minutes later, a man would suggest the exact same thing, using the same words, and be congratulated for his terrific, insightful idea.

Nooyi takes us through the events that shaped her, from her childhood and early education in 1960s India, to the Yale School of Management, to her rise as a corporate consultant and strategist who soon ascended into the most senior executive ranks.The book offers an inside look at PepsiCo, and Nooyi’s thinking as she steered the iconic American company toward healthier products and reinvented its environmental profile, despite resistance at every turn.