3-in-3 with Indra Nooyi: Lessons Learned on Family and Mentors

Over the course of my career and as CEO and Chairman of IBM, I got to meet such great people and learn so many great things. I’m excited to share and let others get to know the real people that I respect and admire.

In Indra Nooyi’s book, My Life in Full, she writes beautifully about the impact that different role models and mentors had at different stages of her life and career, starting with her Thatha (grandfather). She also reflects on the challenges of balancing work and family, including what’d she change in hindsight.

In this second part of our 3-in-3 discussion, Indra and I chat about the role models in our families, the importance of having more than one mentor, and relying on family as a support system.

(This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.)

THE IMPACT OF ROLE MODELS

Ginni:

Speaking of important, I want to go to a topic near and dear to both our hearts: family. Because to me, I think this is a topic many people don't talk enough about actually.?

First one is on role models. You've often heard me talk about my mom. My mother, one of my role models, she had no education beyond high school. We had found ourselves on food stamps. She had to find a way to get an education, to get us out. Who would be the role models in your life? Maybe life and career, if that's different. And did they evolve over time?

Indra:

There's no question my mother played a big role in our life because she could have stopped all our dreams and hopes by saying, “No. Society says I should get you married off and I'm going to do it. I don't care what grandfather says or what my husband says. This is what girls do in our community and that's what you should do.” The fact that she allowed us to dream was great. Staying with the women for a second: my sister. If she had not gone to business school in India, I would not have known what business is. In many ways, she sort of forged the path for us. The fact that she got into the most selective school was just spectacular. She was a big role model for me.

MENTORS, PLURAL

Indra:

Otherwise, I had many supporters, Ginni, including my husband, Raj, my in-laws, everybody supported me. But I would say professionally, the people that made a huge difference are all the mentors I had along the way. I think back with great warmth and gratitude to all my mentors, because without them I wouldn't be where I am. Mentors in India, mentors here in the United States. People who I didn't ever ask, “will you be my mentor?” They just reached out and they decided to promote me, push me, critique me constructively, help me. And before I knew it, I was moving from job to job to job. And I never once went to those mentors and asked for a favor. I never once violated the trust they had in me. But these mentors made me. Without them, I would be stuck in some middle level job without any upward movement at all.

Ginni:

It's interesting you use the plural mentors, sponsors, because I think a lot of people think, “Gee, I need a sponsor, a mentor.” And I don't think that's how life is.

Indra:

In fact, it can't work with just one mentor because, as you move you get more and more mentors. If you have just one mentor, worry about it.

Ginni:

Yeah. And to your point, if you are willing to learn from them, then you accumulate them over time.

Indra:

Exactly right. And as you move up, different people have to step up to push you.

Ginni:

I think it's a misnomer that people think, “I need one person to promote me,” and that just isn't true. It's a two-way street, you build them over time.

FAMILY SUPPORT

Ginni:

Alright, now you mentioned Raj a second ago. I didn't realize this, Indra, you and I are both married the same year, both in 1980. Both of us have had long time husbands and successful marriages. I want to talk about support systems. So to me, [Mark] was a very crucial partner in me being able to do what I did. What would you say about Raj? And for those that don't have a husband, it could be a spouse, a partner, it could be anyone who plays that role in your life. What would you say he has done for you in life and career? And then what have you learned from him?

Indra:

Well, you know, I married right. In that way I won the lottery of life, I say, because we always knew that I would be working. Never one did he raise an issue with it or say, “now that we have kids, your job is to stay home,” or anything of that sort. He was an equal partner. We would coordinate calendars. We would decide who was going to be home. If he came home before me, he'd always start the dinner. But more than Raj, I think my in-laws deserve a lot of credit because they too supported me. They were proud of what I was doing. I think that having a supportive husband who has your back all the time makes a huge difference.

Don't think that your husband compliments you all the time. That's not how it is. They tell it to you like it is. And in fact, you're better off leaving all your job issues at the door before you come in. Don't burden them with your trials and tribulations at work all the time. But Raj was my biggest advisor, my shoulder, my support, my rock for the kids. Family to me was so important, having a husband and kids, I knew that was the anchor for me. Keeping that going was very, very important. But at the same time, I loved my job. The only way I could balance both is with the right spouse.

Ginni:

It's interesting because I have great admiration for people who have children and – not just our jobs, but any job, frankly. I think it's incredibly hard. I have empathy. Watching my own sisters, it gave me sort of insight on a lot of the programs I would put in IBM. I'm really in admiration of what you accomplished with your two great daughters.

Indra:

Thank you.

Ginni:

And I feel like you about, you know, you need someone there who will give you candid feedback. Which is what he does.

Indra:

All I'd like them to say sometimes is that we are right.

Ginni:

Yeah, I know. Well you can keep waiting, wishing for that.

Indra:

<Laugh>

Ginni:

Yeah. Well, Raj is a great guy, and talented on his own.

Indra:

Oh totally. I know. Had his own career, never gave it up for me. And so it worked out.

Ginni:

Now, two girls, the daughters – what have you learned from them over the years?

Indra:

Well, you know, having two daughters was fantastic, because the amount of love they give you on good days is really, really good. I think the most important thing is, I grew up at a time, in a society and in a country and an environment where women were treated differently, behaved differently, everything. Fast forward to when I had my girls, the only parenting style I knew was the way I was brought up. So with my first daughter, I tried all of the restrictions that were put on me. Didn't work. With our second daughter, we relaxed a lot of those and became better parents. I think that we get caught in this cultural conflict, and we have to change. Because the kids didn't ask to be born here. It was a learning process for us all the way – how to accept the changing lifestyles of our daughters based on the environment they're growing up in as opposed to the environment we were used to. So we were always behind.

Ginni:

Would that have been different? If you had stayed living in India, in the same time and space, had it changed there too?

Indra:

It has changed profoundly. In fact, I'd say in some ways gone ahead of the United States in the way the young girls are advancing. The problem is the only India we knew was this idyllic upbringing. We assumed India had stopped still because we had never gone to live there for beyond a week or two of vacation. So for us, our frame was different. But now, if I go to India and I look around, I go, “Oh my God, my kids are super conservative relative to what I'm seeing here.”

Ginni:

In the book, Indra, you write a lot about – and you come back to the theme often – about the tradeoffs you had to make, between the family and how many things you missed. Talk a little bit about either what you regret or what you’d do differently.

Indra:

As I said, since there was no technology, everything required traveling, everything required face-to-face meetings. We didn't know what flexible work hours were in those days. I tried to make as much as I could, Ginni. There were meetings I missed. It's more not being home in the evenings when they came home from school. So if I had to do it all over again I would go home at three o'clock, get them off the school bus, have a snack with them, chat about their day. And go back to doing work while they were doing their homework, so we were all doing homework. Then we all have dinner together and we all go to bed. So I would craft a very different day if I started today. And I'd put family in the center of the future of work, as opposed to thinking about family as fringe, which is what we did in those days.

Ginni:

Yeah. In many ways – look, there's no doubt that to take on the jobs you and I had, they require immense amounts of time. You can't fool people to say, “oh no, no, you can do them in a few hours.” You can't. However, you can set some boundaries about your time and move things around

Indra:

Today you can.?

On balance, I think constructed properly, remote working can be a boom.