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We ponder it over coffee and mull over it at work; it is always on the back burner somewhere as far as women who aspire to the top are concerned. Can we truly achieve the ultimate work-home balance that keeps all the stakeholders happy? Can a woman truly be the goddess of her home and the captain of her ship at work? Is it a myth or reality?



Indra Nooyi
Listening to one of those women who broke ranks to head one of the world’s top corporates, you would think not. Almost all South Asian career women have admired Indra Nooyi, the current CEO of Pepsi Co, who hails from Tamil Nadu and who has gone on to conquer the American corporate world with aplomb.

Nooyi wears her credentials well – she started her stellar career in India with Johnson & Johnson and then moved to the US to attend the Yale School of Management from where she never looked back, going on to join the Boston Consultancy Group and then on to Motorola and Asea Brown Boveri.

She joined Pepsi Co in 1994 and was appointed its President/CFO in 2001. For over a decade, Nooyi has led Pepsi Co as its fifth CEO towards smart acquisitions and bigger revenues. She has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal, Time, Forbes and Fortune for her achievements. In 2010, Fortune ranked her the sixth most powerful woman in the world.

Credentials aside, Nooyi believes that no matter how high a woman might rise in her career, she could never achieve that total balance. In a recent interview with media, she tells the story of coming home after being appointed Head of Pepsi Co to share the exciting news with her mother; instead, her mother sends her to get some milk.

“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,” says Nooyi’s mother to her daughter.



Can’t have all  
That’s wisdom at work. Mrs Krishnamurthy knew exactly what she was telling her daughter. And to most of us, that should always hold true and ring right. You may wear the crown in the boardroom but to your family, you are the mother, the wife, the homemaker. We would do ourselves a service if we never let ourselves forget that.

Speaking further, Nooyi says that she doesn’t think women can have it all. She says most of us pretend we have it all but we don’t. And she is right – we cannot have it all yes but we can make do with what we have. We don’t have to be the best mother the best wife but the mother and the wife who is around when needed.

In Nooyi’s case, she speaks of developing coping mechanisms, while she does admit that she doesn’t think she’s been a good mother. Married for 34 years and a mother to two girls, she tells the story of having to miss her daughter’s class coffee because she couldn’t be free at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday mornings. She had to run a company. Nooyi candidly tells how she got a list of other moms who too weren’t there and shared that with her daughter. Whether it made her daughter feel better, we do not know.

Her thoughts on ‘dying with guilt’ would ring familiar with most career moms who somehow never are able to come around it fully. She makes some other, very interesting statements about the biological clock conflicting with the career clock. The kids come along just as you are building your career – and then when you are in management, your kids are teenagers and need you more than before. Throw in a husband who needs you too and parents who are aging and need attention.



Coping mechanisms
Nooyi’s logic is simple – you cannot stay home and engage in mothering as a full time job if you are engaged in a career. You must try to use your existing network to ensure that there are people manning the gates of discipline and order as far as the children are concerned. Since not everyone who is engaged in a career is a world-class CEO, the others can train mothers, sisters or domestic workers on hand to fulfil the role of ensuring that tasks are done and some free time is allowed. How far this kind of remote control mothering works, only time will tell.

" Credentials aside, Nooyi believes that no matter how high a woman might rise in her career, she could never achieve that total balance"

But Nooyi’s stand on the work-life balance holds true. Often, it is how you choose to get it right to suit your individual circumstances. How the balance works is entirely up to you. For others, the route of entrepreneurship becomes the next best thing and they give up their career to start on their own. After all, it is a delicate balance that must be just right. And that balance can only be worked out by you and not any manual out there.

(Nayomini Weerasooriya, a senior journalist, writer and a PR professional, can be contacted at [email protected])