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Total Number of Subscribers: 467 |
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Date:28th December 2008 |
Compiled by Mr. M. Sathya Kumar |
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Indra Nooyi's
mantras for success She's No. 3 on
Forbes' list of the 100 most powerful women in the world. In the same list,
US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice ranks at No. 7, Sonia Gandhi is at No.
21, Hillary Clinton at No. 28, Oprah Winfrey at 36, Queen Elizabeth at 58,
and Mayawati at 59. The only other Indian businesswoman on the list is Kiran
Mazumdar-Shaw at No. 99. Yes, we are talking about the incredible Indra
Krishnamurthy Nooyi, chairman, PepsiCo, who the top-ranked corporate
chief on this list Forbes has named her the
top-paid female CEO in the United States; Nooyi's total annual package was a
whopping $14.7 million, with a cash pay of $4.9 million. The PepsiCo chairperson has also been listed
among the world's 100 most influential people. Incidentally, Nooyi, who was appointed the
cola giant's chairperson in May 2007 -- she was earlier president and CEO --
was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2007. Here are some words of wisdom from a
business woman whom Time
magazine has described as a 'world class leader.' Read on . . · You give a team of people a set of
objectives and goals and get them all to buy into it, and they can move
mountains · Aim high and put your heart into it. · What's important is trying to be the best
and working to get there. And that's how you fulfil your potential. · I'm putting my hand up and saying, 'Able
body, ready to work. I can scrub floors to address big issues. · Work for the right person. Work for a
company that wants you to succeed. Don't play politics and just focus on the
job at hand · Take a stand. Be known for your courage and
confidence. · Success isn't money, prestige or power
because net worth can never define self-worth. True success is being happy
with yourself, is being fulfilled. And that comes from devoting your time,
your life, to doing what you love the most. · At the end of the day if I stand back and
have regrets, it is never going to work. You just look forward and get on
with life. · What you know is more important than who
you know because that's what gets you 'who you know.' · Don't think of the difficult journey.
Think, instead, of the wonderful destination. · We are too attached to the known security
of the past and too wary of the challenging promises of the future. This
often leads to complacency or inertia. · You've got to say, at every point in your
life, if you were to drop dead, would your epitaph be something that you
could be proud of? Is your legacy something that would linger long after you?
· If there is (a glass ceiling), remember it
is made of glass and it can be easily broken. All you have to do is try. · The best test is that I wake up every
morning dying to come to work. · My parents and my grandfather taught me
that when you do a job, you got to do it better than everybody else. Simple.
You cannot let anybody down. · When you don't have a safety net, when you
don't have money to buy clothes for interviews and you are going to a summer
job in saris, all of a sudden life gives you a wakeup call and you realise
that you have got to work extremely hard to make it happen for you. · I grew up with a mother who said, 'I'll
arrange a marriage for you at 18,' but she also said that we could achieve
anything we put our minds to and encouraged us to dream of becoming prime
minister or president. She made me learn Indian classical music because
that's what good Indian girls did, but she also let me be in a rock band.
'You've got to be a good Indian woman first,' she said, 'but go ahead and
dream.' · As a child in India, my mother would ask a
simple but compelling question: 'What would you do to change the world?'
Today, my answer would be that I want to lead a company that is a force for
good in the world. · The good news is that a company remains
great when there is a strong competitor. If you have no competition, you will
atrophy. · We say someone is good company when we
enjoy being with them. A good company creates that kind of enjoyment. In the
process, it creates a strong sense of identity. People come together in
pursuit of the same goals. A team is formed. · Being a good business starts with being a
good employer. · Good candidates can pick and choose more
between companies who make similar offers to them. The deciding factor is the
kind of company that they want to work for. They are comfortable in societies
with many cultures, they want to work flexibly. They are both more demanding
and more in demand. They want success, but not at any price. They want to do
some good in the world. · Succession planning is critical. Our
succession planning process is designed to identify the kinds of experiences
our leaders need. Once identified, we put people in assignments that enable
them to build those skill sets. · If we do our work well, then I dream that
all those extraordinary Indians residing all over the world will find their
next generation back at home, in the amazing, abundant, talented land of
India. · Sometimes I think we (Indians) lack the
zeal, the fire to renew ourselves and vigorously compete in the global arena.
· With almost 25 million university
graduates, India's scientists, engineers and academicians rank among the best
in the world. These are wonderful assets. But the world will never know
unless we shout if from rooftops loudly, clearly, frequently, in a
captivating way. · To be successful in foreign countries, you
got to walk a mile in the shoes of those people; while in Rome, do as the
Romans do. You retain your Indianness, but you also have to adapt to what
that country needs. If you remain too isolated, you will never be successful.
· India's greatest advantage is its people,
so we have to invest in them. · The toughest thing about transformation is
letting your best friends and people you worked with for years leave and go
off on their own. · To attract the best people, we have got to
create an environment where people can actually balance life. · In every change agenda, there is always going
to be a percentage of people -- like 10% or something -- that are not going
to agree to the new agenda. They are the casualties of the change. If they
have to go, they have to go. · A good company offers employees a career,
not just a job. To describe it as a career shows that we have an enduring
interest in someone. They are not here today, gone tomorrow and thanks for
what we could take from you. · You should never wait until somebody is
ready to say goodbye to tell them how much you value them. · Today's is a war for talent. People don't
come into the company and stay for reasons other than compensation. · I'm a mother first, then a CEO, then a wife
· The fact is that if you are a woman and
especially a person of colour woman, there are two strikes against you.
Immigrant, person of colour, and woman, three strikes against you. · Ever since I have been in the work life, I
have always used a simple rule: Whatever I did, I had to produce an output
that was so much better than what somebody else did. So I would work extra
hard at it. More hours, yes. More sacrifices and trade-offs, yes. This is the
only journey I know. I don't know what it is to have the cushy life and go
home to watch the 6.00 news. · There is an inherent issue of conflict, as
the biological clock and the career clock are working at the same time. · As a woman in a leadership position you can
ensure: a) Equal pay for equal jobs done; b) Have a voice to represent women
in your company; and c) Create an environment at work where there is
flexibility. · Women want to be mothers. This is the still
point. But they are needed in the workforce in ever greater numbers. · It is a difficult balance between
entrepreneurial society and the needs of home. · Leadership is hard to define and good
leadership even harder. But if you can get people to follow you to the ends
of the earth, you are a great leader. · I have a five Cs model for leadership:
competence (damn good at getting results); confidence to have the courage to
make the tough calls; communication skills, to convey your vision and
direction; compass pointed north to your true values; compassion -- empathy,
not sympathy · As a leader, I am tough on myself and I
raise the standard for everybody; however, I am very caring because I want
people to excel at what they are doing so that they can aspire to be me in
the future. · To be a CEO is a calling. You should not do
it because it is a job. It is a calling and you have got to be involved in it
with your head, heart and hands. Your heart has got to be in the job, you got
to love what you do, it consumes you. And if you are not willing to get into
the CEO job that way, there is no point getting into it. · One of the most important things for a
leader is to identify their own core competency. In my case, my core
competency is my ability to be able to demystify any complicated problem. I
continuously strive to enhance that core competency. · A leader must have the courage and
confidence to stand up and defend his/ her ideas. · Effective communication is the key to
success. Clarity and conciseness are critical for effective communication. I
urge you to read speeches of great leaders like Abraham Lincoln or John F
Kennedy to see how they were able inspire people. · Consistency is an important aspect of
leadership since it helps build trust in those that follow you. · Let mentors find you. If you ask someone to
be your mentor and they agree, then they probably aren't going to push you as
hard as someone who is grooming you for the next level. · Be honest in appraisals. If people aren't
performing well, help them 'cross the bridge' and get where they need to go
by examining why they aren't performing. Raise the bar as the boss. · Coaches or mentors are very important. They
could be anyone -- your husband, other family members or your boss. But you
cannot pick them. They will pick you. · Don't expect to be on the same promotional
track as someone who works five days a week if you work three days a week. In
less than ideal situations tough it out, try to change it and then leave even
if it means not working for some time. · The minute you've developed a new business
model, it's extinct, because somebody is going to copy it. When I
became the president, at 10 o'clock in the night I went home and said, 'Mom I
have some very important news.' To which she said, 'Leave that important
news, just go buy some milk'. To which I said, 'Raj is home. Why don't you
ask him to buy the milk?' She said, 'He is tired.' Typical mother you know,
can't disturb the son-in-law! I was very upset, but I went and bought the
milk and banged it on the kitchen table in front of her and said, 'Tell me,
why do I have to buy the milk and not somebody else?' She just looked at me
-- and I will never forget it, it was a powerful lesson, and said -- 'Look,
when you pull into the garage, leave the crown there. Don't walk in with it,
because you are first a wife and a mother. And if the family needs milk, you
go get the milk. That is your primary role in life. Everything else is what
you acquired or what you got because I pray for four to five hours a day.'
That is the only thing she tells me. She says, 'What did you accomplish? You
sit in a meeting on a chair all the time, and I pray for 4-5 hours.' · The power of private capitalism must serve
the interests of society. Not the other way around. · Companies today are bigger than many
economies. We are little republics. We are engines of efficiency. If
companies don't do (responsible) things, who is going to? Why not start
making change now? · No company can stand apart from the
societies it does its business in. · A good company makes products that
responsibly nourish people and societies in some way -- physically or
spiritually and often both at the same time. · Profit is where a business' responsibility
begins, not ends. |
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