Indra Nooyi

So that's the way to do succession.

And so I think outgoing CEOs can develop people, but they don't select the person.

That's my belief.

I think an outgoing CEO should just leave, should not sit on the board because then you're sort of curbing what the new CEO can do because they're now always looking over their shoulder to see if they can take a direction that's different than the CEO sitting on the board.

It's a terrible situation.

When I stepped down as CEO, I told the board I wouldn't be chairman for more than two months, max.

And then I'm out because I wanted the new CEO to have total flexibility to do whatever he wanted.

When you're a CEO, you're it.

When you're on a board, you're one among peers.

So it's a group of you collectively that are serving the company.

Nobody is more important than the other.

We're all doing it together.

So it's got to be, you've got to understand you're dealing with peers and together we are the board first.

Point number two, there's a deep urge as a CEO to want to manage the company.

You cannot manage the company.

You can only provide direction, ideas, suggestions to the company and worry about the governance of the company.

So you've got to make sure you don't dig into the reeds and create confusion as to whose direction should we be taking.

So it's very important that CEOs forget their CEO-ship and put on a board hat and always ask yourself the question,

When I was CEO, if a board member behaved the way I'm behaving now, would I have liked it?

Always ask yourself that question.