Oh my dear
career women.......
I would
like to share a few observations:
There
seems to be a lot of hue and cry about Indra Nooyi's comments. She just warned
all the new entries that juggling between work and profession is not an easy
task. She emphasized that it is not a rosy picture. All those who have
struggled/cherished and scaled heights will definitely agree with it.
The title
does not matter.....juggling is tough! Nobody reaches the pinnacle of their
profession overnight. It is journey where you are forced to walk on thorns and
glass pieces. The pin pricks prevail. She has beautifully explained that
"the crown' does not matter, ultimately it is your family.
The second
point that I would like to share is Work-Life balance is not gender specific.
When your man returns from work with full of joy because he has got a hefty
bonus, will this have any meaning if his child is down with illness. His wife will
be annoyed about the child and the extended family will probably say: "Oh
he got it for the child’s treatment." His joy is submerged.
The
feeling of guilt prevails even in a man if he is not able to be there during
family crisis / joyous moments. Recently I attended a wedding, the bride groom
joined duty on the second day leaving his wife alone in a new place, because he
had to attend to quarterly closing. His wife did not know the local language.
His duty is from 12 noon to 2am. He was feeling terribly bad but what is the
choice. Life has to go on.
To
conclude I wish to state:
a) Never
feel guilty of your choice whether it is staying at home or profession....after
all even homemakers have a lot to feel guilty... at the end of the day it is
your choice.
b) The
role of a MOTHER can never be substituted.
c) Extended
family support is a MUST to pursue your career.....there is no alternative to
that.
d) Work
life balance is not gender specific.......Both the genders have to
practice for the peace of family life
And finally it is learning to compromise!
Now for
those who have missed the interview of Indra Nooyi, I have given below the
article.
Why PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi Can't
Have It All
"If
you ask our daughters," she said in a frank interview on work-life
balance, "I'm not sure they will say that I've been a good mom."
Conor
Friedersdorf Jul 1 2014, 9:59 AM ET
ASPEN,
Colo.—While interviewing Indra K. Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiC0, at the Aspen Ideas
Festival Monday*, David Bradley, who owns The Atlantic, asked two questions
that elicited as frank a discussion of work-life balance as I've seen from a
U.S. CEO. Below is a lightly edited transcript. The second question was
preceded by a brief discussion of Anne-Marie Slaughter's "Why Women Still
Can't Have It All."
ASPEN,
Colo.—While interviewing Indra K. Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiC0, at the Aspen Ideas
Festival Monday*, David Bradley, who owns The Atlantic, asked two questions
that elicited as frank a discussion of work-life balance as I've seen from a
U.S. CEO. Below is a lightly edited transcript. The second question was
preceded by a brief discussion of Anne-Marie Slaughter's "Why Women Still
Can't Have It All."
Q. You
come home one day as president of the company, just appointed, and your mom is
not that impressed. Would you tell that story?
This is
about 14 years ago. I was working in the office. I work very late, and we were
in the middle of the Quaker Oats acquisition. And I got a call about 9:30 in
the night from the existing chairman and CEO at that time. He said, Indra,
we're going to announce you as president and put you on the board of
directors... I was overwhelmed, because look at my background and where I came
from—to be president of an iconic American company and to be on the board of
directors, I thought something special had happened to me.
So rather
than stay and work until midnight which I normally would've done because I had
so much work to do, I decided to go home and share the good news with my
family. I got home about 10, got into the garage, and my mother was waiting at
the top of the stairs. And I said, "Mom, I've got great news for
you." She said, "let the news wait. Can you go out and get some
milk?" I looked in the garage and it looked like my husband was home. I
said, "what time did he get home?" She said "8 o'clock." I
said, "Why didn't you ask him to buy the milk?" "He's
tired." Okay. We have a couple of help at home, "why didn't you ask
them to get the milk?" She said, "I forgot." She said just get
the milk. We need it for the morning. So like a dutiful daughter, I went out
and got the milk and came back.
I banged
it on the counter and I said, "I had great news for you. I've just been
told that I'm going to be president on the Board of Directors. And all that you
want me to do is go out and get the milk, what kind of a mom are you?" And
she said to me, "let me explain something to you. You might be president
of PepsiCo. You might be on the board of directors. But when you enter this
house, you're the wife, you're the daughter, you're the daughter-in-law, you're
the mother. You're all of that. Nobody else can take that place. So leave that
damned crown in the garage. And don't bring it into the house. You know I've
never seen that crown."
Q. What's
your opinion about whether women can have it all?
I don't
think women can have it all. I just don't think so. We pretend we have it all.
We pretend we can have it all. My husband and I have been married for 34 years.
And we have two daughters. And every day you have to make a decision about
whether you are going to be a wife or a mother, in fact many times during the
day you have to make those decisions. And you have to co-opt a lot of people to
help you. We co-opted our families to help us. We plan our lives meticulously
so we can be decent parents. But if you ask our daughters, I'm not sure they
will say that I've been a good mom. I'm not sure. And I try all kinds of coping
mechanisms.
I'll tell
you a story that happened when my daughter went to Catholic school. Every
Wednesday morning they had class coffee with the mothers. Class coffee for a
working woman—how is it going to work? How am I going to take off 9 o'clock on
Wednesday mornings? So I missed most class coffees. My daughter would come home
and she would list off all the mothers that were there and say, "You were
not there, mom."
The first
few times I would die with guilt. But I developed coping mechanisms. I called
the school and I said, "give me a list of mothers that are not
there." So when she came home in the evening she said, "You were not
there, you were not there."
And I said,
"ah ha, Mrs. Redd wasn't there, Mrs. So and So wasn't there. So I'm not
the only bad mother."
You know,
you have to cope, because you die with guilt. You just die with guilt. My
observation, David, is that the biological clock and the career clock are in
total conflict with each other. Total, complete conflict. When you have to have
kids you have to build your career. Just as you're rising to middle management
your kids need you because they're teenagers, they need you for the teenage
years.
And that's
the time your husband becomes a teenager too, so he needs you (laughing). They
need you too. What do you do? And as you grow even more, your parents need you
because they're aging. So we're screwed. We have no... we cannot have it all.
Do you know what? Coping mechanisms. Train people at work. Train your family to
be your extended family. You know what? When I'm in PepsiCo I travel a lot, and
when my kids were tiny, especially my second one, we had strict rules on
playing Nintendo. She'd call the office, and she didn't care if I was in China,
Japan, India, wherever. She'd call the office, the receptionist would pick up
the phone, "Can I speak to my mommy?" Everybody knows if somebody
says, 'Can I speak to mommy?' It's my daughter. So she'd say, "Yes, Tyra,
what can I do for you?"
"I
want to play Nintendo."
So she has
a set of questions. "Have you finished your homework?" Etc. I say
this because that's what it takes. She goes through the questions and she says,
"Okay, you can play Nintendo half an hour." Then she leaves me a
message. "Tyra called at 5. This is the sequence of questions I went
through. I've given her permission." So it's seamless parenting. But if
you don't do that, I'm serious, if you don't develop mechanisms with your secretaries,
with the extended office, with everybody around you, it cannot work. You know,
stay at home mothering was a full time job. Being a CEO for a company is three
full time jobs rolled into one. How can you do justice to all? You can't. The
person who hurts the most through this whole thing is your spouse. There's no
question about it. You know, Raj always said, you know what, your list is
PepsioCo, PepsiCo, PepsiCo, our two kids, your mom, and then at the bottom of
the list is me. There are two ways to look at it. (laughing) You should be
happy you're on the list. So don't complain. (laughing) He is on the list. He
is very much on the list. But you know, (laughing) sorry, David.
