Indra Nooyi

So you've got to be very careful how you deal with organizational dynamics.

But these are people who look around themselves and are constantly looking for ways to improve the company as opposed to how do I get the next promotion, the next raise.

That's a very important question, Shane, because I think you have to understand the politics of an organization.

Where there are people, there's politics, okay?

You've got to understand the politics, but don't play in the politics.

Don't meddle in the politics.

Just understand who doesn't like whom and how meetings work.

Just understand it.

And then figure out how best to contribute within that.

Once you start to meddle in the politics and gossip about it, you become a negative force.

That's been my mantra through the entire time that I was in corporate America.

Because meddling in the politics, playing the politics, becoming political yourself and gossiping is only a formula for disaster.

Focus on the job.

Focus on moving everything forward.

I think things will be great.

Now, I was helped because of the fact that I had a family and kids.

So work in the office, I had to go home to the family and kids.

I had no time for bar talk or going out to dinner and talking about the politics.

And I really didn't care about it.

Companies like PepsiCo, at least in my time, I can only talk about the time when I was there, you know, we had very good scorecards to measure productivity, spans and layers, and we monitored that constantly.