After 12 years, PepsiCo’s chief executive is stepping down. Although Indra Nooyi’s impact on the company is well-known—and widely admired—what’s less known is the impact one class had on Nooyi’s career.
When Nooyi was enrolled in a master’s program at Yale University, she expected to pass the courses easily. After all, she had an MBA from India’s top management school and degrees in physics, chemistry, and math. At the time, Yale required that students pass a public-speaking course in order to enter the second year. Nooyi flunked. She took the course again during the summer. She didn’t like to fail at anything, so this time she concentrated on being the best. “It made a huge difference,” Nooyi said about the experience.
“You cannot over-invest in communication skills—written and oral communication skills,” Nooyi once said at a women’s leadership conference. “Learn how to motivate people—small groups, medium-sized groups, large groups— and how to write in a way that’s pithy and to the point.”
Nooyi told a class of Stanford business students that public-speaking skills paid off when she had to convince PepsiCo’s board, investors and stakeholders to make the transition to healthier products. It’s not as easy as convincing a group of like-minded entrepreneurs in a small startup, she said. PepsiCo had 260,000 employees at the time and Nooyi had decided to change the model to include better-for-you products.
“Employees were saying, ‘We’re doing pretty well. Why do we have to change?’ But the challenge for a leader is to look around the corner and making the change before it’s too late to make the change,” Nooyi said. Investors, too, were skeptical and pushed back on Nooyi’s decision. She had to be persuasive and to show them how consumer habits were changing, and how the company had to change along with them. When a CEO decides to change, Nooyi said, “You’ve got to tell them what you’re doing, how you’ll do it, how it’s going to impact them and why they should come with you on the journey.”
Nooyi says today’s leaders are running companies in a world of unprecedented change. For most people, change is hard. People view change with skepticism and anxiety. It’s up to the leader who’s making the change to paint a picture of how that change will benefit all the company’s stakeholders—from employees to customers.
Effective public-speaking helped Nooyi navigate one of the biggest challenges in PepsiCo’s history.
Warren Buffett also credits a public-speaking class for his career success. Early in his career, Buffett was terrified of speaking in public. He signed up for a public-speaking course, paid $100 to register, and didn’t show up. Buffett says he was too afraid to even speak in front of the class. He worked up his courage a second time and passed the course. Today in Buffett’s office he doesn’t have a framed diploma of his college or business degrees, but he proudly displays his public-speaking certificate. “It’s the one investment that supersedes all the others,” Buffett says.
Effective public speaking gave Buffett the courage and confidence to speak to groups of people who would give Buffett their money to invest.
Buffett is such a strong believer in developing public-speaking skills, he once put a dollar value on it. Speaking to a class of business students at Columbia University, Buffett said, “Right now I would pay $100,000 for 10% of the future earnings of any of you in this class,” he said. Buffett then said he would invest $150,000 in those students who have the degree and are good public speakers—an instant 50% gain.
“The unusual person will jump out,” Buffett once said. “You will jump out, much more than you can anticipate, if you get really comfortable with public speaking. It’s an asset that will last you 50 or 60 years and it’s a liability if you don’t like doing it.”
Buffett and Nooyi both reinforce a critical point that every leader and aspiring leader should take to heart. Mastering the art of public speaking is no longer an option. It’s fundamental for anyone who wants to stand out in their career, make a difference and change hearts and minds.