11/22/2021
Adam Grant hosts a podcast on work life balance featuring leaders from all over the world. In this podcast Adam interviews former Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi.
She discusses an initiative she started after visiting her mom that aligns with the U.S. Army Chief of Staff's #PeopleFirst initiatives. She wrote letters to families of the people that worked for her highlighting the impact they were having in the organization. Think of it as the "golden triangle" for the civilian sector. Below she talks about why she did it and the result of her efforts.
Adam Grant (AG):
When you first became CEO, you did something really unusual with your senior executives.
Indra Nooyi (IN):
Well, you know, I ran home to India right after I became CEO and my mother was living in India at that time. And, you know, she asked me to sort of show up, dressed up and sit in the living room with her. And I did, and people's time would come in and, you know, people I barely knew came in, they just say, hello, uh, congratulations, like 10 seconds.
And then go sit with my mom and tell her you did such a good job bringing up your daughter. She's brought pride to the family prior to the country. Uh, you know, you should feel so good. But then it made me think to myself and say, Hey, once you turn 18, you don't get a report card on your kids.
So I came back and I said, you know what? Since my direct reports and their direct reports, the top two levels of the company have already made it. It's going to be a good report card. So let me write to the parents and say, thank you for the gift of your child to PepsiCo. So this was not a form letter though.
There's about six paragraphs, three paragraphs talked about why I'm writing them this letter. I didn't want them to get upset or what are you door? You know, why is the chairman writing to me two paragraphs, very specific to that. Very specific what they were contributing, why I thought fantastic. And then there was a closing paragraph and I copied the letter to every employee because sometimes parents didn't speak English.
And I wanted to make sure that when they saw the word chairman, they didn't get scared. And it was the best thing I did at them. Because over my time at PepsiCo, I wrote about to--to 400 executives. I wrote to the spouses and the parents. And I have to tell you the relationship that was set up between me and the parents was just unbelievable.
And the executives just love the fact that the parents now had something to celebrate about their kids on a regular basis. I remember one story of an executive who's of Indian origin. He said to me, his father made a hundred copies of the letters, Saturday, um, ground floor of the apartment building they were living in.
And everybody in the building who came home from work, he gave them a copy of the letter and said, I want you to see what the chairman of PepsiCo thinks of my son. So there was that level of pride that I had, and many, many executives in American companies who read that and then started to write to parents of their executives, said that it was one of the most emotionally amazing things they've ever done for their employees.
AG:
What an incredible way to show people just how much you've had. So I think it's, you know, it won't be a surprise to anybody who knows you, that you have a reputation for being extremely caring and having real concern about the people who work for you.
Listen to the Podcast or read the transcript here: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife/taken-for-granted-indra-nooyi-wants-us-to-reimagine-the-return-to-work-transcript
Army Medicine
The Army Leader Exchange
Centre for Army Leadership
Medical Service Corps Chief
U.S. Air Force Medical Service - AFMS
U.S. Army Medical Department (AMEDD)
U.S. Army
30th Medical Brigade
44th Medical Brigade
1st Medical Brigade
62nd Medical Brigade
65th Medical Brigade
@18th Medical Command (Deployment Support)
Adam Grant hosts a podcast on work life balance featuring leaders from all over the world. In this podcast Adam interviews former Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi.
She discusses an initiative she started after visiting her mom that aligns with the U.S. Army Chief of Staff's #PeopleFirst initiatives. She wrote letters to families of the people that worked for her highlighting the impact they were having in the organization. Think of it as the "golden triangle" for the civilian sector. Below she talks about why she did it and the result of her efforts.
Adam Grant (AG):
When you first became CEO, you did something really unusual with your senior executives.
Indra Nooyi (IN):
Well, you know, I ran home to India right after I became CEO and my mother was living in India at that time. And, you know, she asked me to sort of show up, dressed up and sit in the living room with her. And I did, and people's time would come in and, you know, people I barely knew came in, they just say, hello, uh, congratulations, like 10 seconds.
And then go sit with my mom and tell her you did such a good job bringing up your daughter. She's brought pride to the family prior to the country. Uh, you know, you should feel so good. But then it made me think to myself and say, Hey, once you turn 18, you don't get a report card on your kids.
So I came back and I said, you know what? Since my direct reports and their direct reports, the top two levels of the company have already made it. It's going to be a good report card. So let me write to the parents and say, thank you for the gift of your child to PepsiCo. So this was not a form letter though.
There's about six paragraphs, three paragraphs talked about why I'm writing them this letter. I didn't want them to get upset or what are you door? You know, why is the chairman writing to me two paragraphs, very specific to that. Very specific what they were contributing, why I thought fantastic. And then there was a closing paragraph and I copied the letter to every employee because sometimes parents didn't speak English.
And I wanted to make sure that when they saw the word chairman, they didn't get scared. And it was the best thing I did at them. Because over my time at PepsiCo, I wrote about to--to 400 executives. I wrote to the spouses and the parents. And I have to tell you the relationship that was set up between me and the parents was just unbelievable.
And the executives just love the fact that the parents now had something to celebrate about their kids on a regular basis. I remember one story of an executive who's of Indian origin. He said to me, his father made a hundred copies of the letters, Saturday, um, ground floor of the apartment building they were living in.
And everybody in the building who came home from work, he gave them a copy of the letter and said, I want you to see what the chairman of PepsiCo thinks of my son. So there was that level of pride that I had, and many, many executives in American companies who read that and then started to write to parents of their executives, said that it was one of the most emotionally amazing things they've ever done for their employees.
AG:
What an incredible way to show people just how much you've had. So I think it's, you know, it won't be a surprise to anybody who knows you, that you have a reputation for being extremely caring and having real concern about the people who work for you.
Listen to the Podcast or read the transcript here: https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife/taken-for-granted-indra-nooyi-wants-us-to-reimagine-the-return-to-work-transcript
Army Medicine
The Army Leader Exchange
Centre for Army Leadership
Medical Service Corps Chief
U.S. Air Force Medical Service - AFMS
U.S. Army Medical Department (AMEDD)
U.S. Army
30th Medical Brigade
44th Medical Brigade
1st Medical Brigade
62nd Medical Brigade
65th Medical Brigade
@18th Medical Command (Deployment Support)
