Why Modern Communication is Making Us LESS Connected | Suhel Seth

In an age where opinions form faster than facts and headlines spark outrage before understanding, how do brands, leaders, and storytellers stay credible? 

Is your opinion truly yours? Or just an echo of your tribe?

In this episode, Suhel Seth unpacks the transformation of communication in the era of attention deficit — from the collapse of nuance to the rise of instant outrage, and why the art of thoughtful messaging might just be the most urgent skill of our time. 

Listen For

3:07 The Cult of Immediacy: A Communication Crisis

7:59 The Lost Art of Contextualization

12:26 Social Identity & Tribal Thinking

14:32 Why Modern Society Fears Disruption

19:14 India: A Market or a Civilization?

23:57 Why India Didn’t Create Google or Facebook

24:50 Answer to Last Episode’s Question From Guest Andy Coulson 

Guest: Suhel Seth

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Chapters

• 3:07 The Cult of Immediacy: A Communication Crisis
• 7:59 The Lost Art of Contextualization
• 12:26 Social Identity & Tribal Thinking
• 14:32 Why Modern Society Fears Disrupution
• 19:14 India: A Market or a Civilization?
• 23:57 Why India Didn’t Create Google or Facebook
• 24:50 Answer to Last Episode’s Question From Guest Andy Coulson

Transcript

David Olijade (00:01):

In an age where truth wore a cap and bells, one King's downfall began with a single misguided demand. "Prove your love with words." This is the story of power perception and how the sharpest insight often comes from the most unexpected voice.

Farzana Baduel (00:31):

It was a time of crowns and castles of loyalty and betrayal. A time when words carried weight, sometimes more than swords. Old king ler, aging and weary decided to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. But there was a catch. He wanted them to prove their love with words. The first two, Goral and Regan gushed with flattery, all sparkled, no substance, but his youngest Cordelia spoke plainly, I love your majesty. According to my bond. No more, no less honest, but not dramatic enough. Lear, in a fit of prideful rage, banished her. Now in the court was a fool, a jester, the only one who dared to speak the truth. He wrapped wisdom in humour, master clarity in riddles. While the world around li cheered his ego, it was the fool who tried subtly, carefully to bring him back to his senses. But Lear didn't listen. And what followed madness, betrayal, A kingdom in ruins, all because he judged on appearances, not sight, flashy, not substance. And now these days we scroll, headlines react in seconds post Before we pause, the wise fool is gone in their place. Influencers and hot takes. Today on stories and strategies, we've traded the fool's wisdom for viral takes and we are seeing the consequences in brand crisis, political uproars, and credibility loss.

(02:27):

My name is Farzana Baduel

Doug Downs (02:30):

And my name is Doug Downs. Our guest this week is Suhel Seth, joining today, I think you said, from the Four Seasons in London. Hi Suhel. Hi. How are things where you are foggy, rainy, sunny, joyous?

Suhel Seth (02:45):

Both sunny and joyous.

Doug Downs (02:47):

That's the way it ought to be every day. Suhel, you're a marketing and branding expert with decades of experience advising global corporations on communication strategy. You're also a columnist and author and public intellectual for that sharp commentary on media, culture and society. It's great to have you here. Thank you,

Farzana Baduel (03:07):

Suhel. I'm going to dive straight in and talk about immediacy. It's overtaken, intentionality and messaging. How would you describe the transformation of public communication in the last decade, especially in relation to immediacy? Reaction, culture, speed.

Suhel Seth (03:23):

I think it's all exaggerated. Immediacy is the cause of many problems. One such problem was seen at the Oval Office between Zelensky, Trump and Vance. If Zelensky had paused, use an interpreter, which is a nice old practice, he wouldn't have reacted so sharply to the stupid comments of both Trump and Vance. So immediacy is actually not a good thing. Alacrity of purpose is good, but this desire to shoot in school to respond to everything that comes your way to look at every WhatsApp message, I mean we are slowly becoming digital slaves of the worst kind. People are unable to think. There was a reason that there was a slogan that think before you speak today, you speak before you think, and then you're thinking about what you said for the rest of your life. So I've never understood and never agreed with this whole immediacy bit.

(04:22):

Messaging is about getting the message across. Messaging is not about creating and transferring a message. So a lot of people in their desire to fulfill social or moral obligations feel it important to respond to every message. No, you do not respond to every message that comes your way because some of them are pure or stupid. The problem has even manifested itself further because you are always wanting to come across as a person who's connected, who's with it, who knows what to do, doesn't matter in the long run as Emerson or John Menarche said in the long run, we are all dead. So this rush to do things is to my mind just unnecessary.

Doug Downs (05:10):

Let me dig into that silence that you touched on. You mentioned it off the top. I call that the technique. Pause, answer, stop as in. Stop talking for goodness sake at some point, especially when it comes to media silence in and of itself off the top. Sure that helps the speaker, but silence. How does it help the listener? We fill things with verbal ums and ahs. We're so worried that someone's going to interrupt before we finished our thought and we try to hold our spot. But the power of silence in having the listener listen to you and translate what you're saying, how important is that?

Suhel Seth (05:56):

There it is.

Speaker 5 (05:57):

Yeah,

Suhel Seth (05:58):

You'll be worried. Oh my God, is the connection good? Is it stable? Is this microphone on? I'm digesting whatever you said I've done. 167 plays the most important thing in a place to know when to pause because only when you pause can you allow for your colleague, your co-active to jump in. There's a reason why we have phrases like a stage pause or a stage whisper or purposeful pauses. It's not about that. Doug, I'll go back to the basics. As a society, we've become less and less verbal. We've become messengers. We haven't become verbal craftsmen. This whole LOL, LON, BRB, I mean what kind of rubbish is this? No one is busy or so busy that they can't craft words which other common people, simple people understand.

(06:58):

I also believe that public speaking has gone out of the window. In these times, public speaking feeds on scholarship, it feeds on the ability to read and more importantly, the ability to absorb. If you go back in time, going to history, say 6,000 years ago we had no education, but we had knowledge. We then created an education system, an edifice. You went, you did 12 years of school, you did three years of college, you did two years of post-grad. So what did we do? We started telling people that, oh look, we are going to create for you a degree, which then makes you as much of a cookie cutter as everyone else is. And knowledge went out of the window. So once a Doug or a farzana completed their college education, they thought they knew it all. Today, knowledge is non-existent. People are not reading.

(07:59):

People are not able to digest or absorb and remember, knowledge is not about how much you read, but it's about your ability to contextualize. Unless society is able to contextualize something, you will never win the debate. Unless you are able to give context, you will never be able to substantiate an argument one way or the other. And for that, you need to be silent occasionally in order to both absorb and reflect. See, the difference between animals and human beings in the mammal kingdom is animals think, but their thoughts are not necessarily related to their actions. Human beings think and are expected to act on the basis of their thoughts, which sometimes we confuse with beliefs. That's the essential difference. Unless you're able to reflect on what you've said or reflect on the knowledge you have, you can never give a considered opinion. You can open your mouth, but it won't be an opinion which is thought through which is calibrated. And I may disagree with you, but I can't be disagreeable. And for that you need elements of silence. You need elements of reflection.

Farzana Baduel (09:16):

So you mentioned context, which is such a key part of the work that we do as prs. Do you think the reason why there is a lack of understanding and a quick response rate in responding to things, for instance on X, that people perhaps don't understand the historical concept? Do you think it's because there's a lack of curiosity? Do you think it's because social media has wide our brains that we are constantly just doom scrolling and there's so many people that I know, even including authors, they don't even have the attention span to read anymore, but they've got the attention span to binge for nine episodes straight on Netflix. Do you think there's been a rewiring of the brain that has led us to drop that acquisition of knowledge that's required in contextual understanding what changes have been made over the, there's decades that you've been observing society that has led to this situation where people are very ready to give opinions but not necessarily ready to read up around the context and have a truly informed opinion.

Suhel Seth (10:22):

A opinions are cheap. A calibrated opinion isn't because you have to research, you have to have context, you have to have knowledge. B, there's the overwhelming desire to please your peers and to be one like them. C, we are no longer a society that thrives on differentiation. We thrive on commonality, both in purpose, in belief. We feel terrible if we were to be politically incorrect or we were at a dinner and we actually said something that would cause affront, which is why woke as a concept is a negative concept. It seems to suggest that only the wokes are liberal and that liberal thinking must come from a left-leaning academic bent of view. That has to change. And I'm not for a moment saying, Trump will bring that change or you need it or you don't need it. Point I'm making is that this cannot be a situation where the world today says what it has without repercussion, without responsibility and without relevance. So if you guide your life by the three Rs, responsibility, repercussion, and relevance, you'll be a much better human being because you'll be responsible for what you say. You will analyze the repercussions and you will see whether what you say is relevant to the context setting at that particular moment on that particular topic.

Doug Downs (11:54):

It feels a lot like we tend to form our opinions along these tribal lines. If I think I'm blue, my friends are blue, everyone around me is blue, then I'm not red. And if I think something is coming from red, I'm going to disregard it regardless of its benefits. I'm just going to decide with blue. I think that's social identity theory and that seems to be what it comes down to. I don't take the time to contextualize or consider because it didn't come from blue. If the same idea came from blue, I'd be all in.

Suhel Seth (12:26):

It's cunning comfort. Doug, you are cunning enough to be comfortable or look at people or make yourself comfortable given the environment you are in. So I've always said that over the years I've seen more and more people take less and less of a stand. We are not willing to stand up and be counted. We do not want to upset anyone.

(12:52):

But Churchill said, the only person you've got to be popular with is your wife. Now the point is that if you try and be popular with everyone, you'll never succeed. Look at what Shakespeare says in Julius says, the good is often entered with the bones. The evil lives long after. So no matter how much good you do, people will still bitch you out. So why would you lie to yourself? Let's understand human behavior in the context of what we are discussing. Whenever we lie, we lie either to please or to hide. There are only two reasons to lie. You don't lie for a third reason. When you're lying to please or you're lying to hide, eventually the truth does emerge. A B, when you lie, you have to remember what you said, which makes it even more weighty as an issue. Third, when you get caught, what face do you have?

(13:48):

But the reason why we are not worried about these things is because shame has gone out of the window. In today's world, we are no longer ashamed of what we stand for, why we stand for something. Because actually Doug and Farzana, we don't stand for anything. We are amoeba like in our mental faculties. We are sponge-like in our human behaviour. We don't have the intellectual heft or the capacity to separate the wheat from the shaft. We think it improper politically incorrect, socially unwise to be disruptors, but human beings are brands. You're not 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, you're Doug Farzana.

(14:32):

In any case, you're a brand. Brands by nature are disruptive, but brands by nature also provide benefits. If Farzana is providing a benefit, she's providing a benefit because her mind can disrupt the status quo and give a solution, which is pathbreaking, likewise for you. But we are unwilling to do that, and I will lay the blame squarely on only two areas. Parenting and the lack of quest for knowledge. All societies which have outsourced parenting in some form or the other are facing social issues like you and I can't imagine, you mean if my kids are

Doug Downs (15:10):

On my phone, on their phone all the time,

Suhel Seth (15:12):

That's bad.

Doug Downs (15:13):

Something's got to raise them.

Suhel Seth (15:15):

That's a problem that you've caused.

Doug Downs (15:16):

Yeah,

Suhel Seth (15:18):

The problem lies with you. Again, to quote Shakespeare, it's not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings. So if you allow for this situation to emerge, it'll happen.

Farzana Baduel (15:32):

You work internationally, Sahel India, us, uk, all over the world. So you have a truly global perspective. You are beginning to see some encroaching regulation on social media. For instance, Australia has been making some noises about wanting to ban social media for under sixteens. Do you see different cultures when you are operating in all these different countries having a different awareness level of the harm and help that social media brings to society?

Suhel Seth (16:04):

I'm going to say something really dramatic. Even while we are on a manifestation of social media. I think social media is overrated. It's cumbersome and it's dangerous. It is a digital drug just like you would ban cocaine, you should ban social media. But banning is not an answer because they will find another way. Subterfuge is again, not a solution. My belief is that it is entirely up to a human being. How you want to run your life. I am on social media when I choose to be and when I have something important to say that I think is important, you might think it's baloney. So what I have the platform, I have the reach, I will say what I want, but I have decided long ago that I will only comment on political oblique current affairs. And where I will help people is only in blood donation because in India with the amount of head injury, accidents, blah, blah, blah, there's always a need for blood. And I retweet all of that. I repost that, but that's me. I use Instagram to have fun. I post what I'm having for breakfast, but I do not believe I have the right to preach.

(17:22):

The problem is we have all become pontificators and the actual pontiff is unwell. So we are now wanting to pontificate on everything, which by the way is also fine, provided you have the knowledge in the absence of knowledge, in the absence of context, in the absence of purposeful opinions, if you comment on something, it'll be hollow, it will be pleasurable. But so is sleeping with an elephant. But when the elephant rolls over, the pleasure can turn into pain

Farzana Baduel (17:59):

You have. Okay, I'll let Doug just

Doug Downs (18:04):

The pictures playing through for me.

Farzana Baduel (18:08):

Suhel. You have about 4.5 million followers on X last time I checked. And it's extraordinary how you take this very centered approach to communications because X always sort of struck me as a very fast moving, immediacy, reigns sort of platform. And you probably see the absolute full breadth of humanity through engaging with your followers. Now, what I wanted to ask you is you have followers from all over the world, obviously a significant number of followers from India as well. I wanted you to share some advice on those people who are listening who understand that India is this incredible fast growing market and they want to start thinking about market access, about brand translation. You are obviously the king of market entry for India. Wanted to ask a few sort of thoughts that you've had over the last 10 years as well as looking back, as well as present and future for companies that are interested in doing business in India, in accessing this fast growing consumer demographic.

Suhel Seth (19:14):

There's a lovely book by Mark Tully who was the longest serving BBC correspondent in India. The title of the book is There are No Full Stops in India, but what he brilliantly says in the book is, whatever you see of India, the opposite is equally true. Remember, the biggest mistake you will make is by defining India as a consumer market, which all of us do. India is a civilizational legacy. All civilizational legacies may have multiple facades, but at their base, they're all rooted to their cultural rootedness, which is why language is critical. Cultural alignment is critical. I remember when Kellogg's came to India, there was a discussion and people asking for advice, blah, blah, blah. I said, the biggest mistake Kellogg's will make is if they believe they're competing against Indian porridge. They're competing with 127 ways that India has breakfast in the east of India.

(20:19):

You have breakfast in the morning, which is with eggs, mutton-curry Indian bread. It's like a full meal. In Gura. It's with doklas. It's with very frugal, blah, blah, blah. So when you come into any market, especially like India, you have to remember that a India is not a country, it's a continent. B India is linguistically hugely scattered and hugely proud of its linguistic identity. Language is again, not something that you can also speak. Language is also an expression. So if you want to succeed in India, you've got to get the underlying expression of that word and then translate your communication strategy. Finally. I mean market access, and you're absolutely right. People who fail in India are people who believe that they can clone other markets onto an Indian ecosystem. Doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. Which is why in a very strange way, and I'm glad you asked the question, how many Indian brands have gone global? Very few. Because the construct of an Indian brand cannot fit any other society because Indian brands by nature have inbuilt elasticity, inbuilt flexibility, and inbuilt extensibility so that you can extend the brand as much because you have to deal with so many contradictions within the subcontinent.

Farzana Baduel (21:54):

But do you think working in markets like North America, Europe, there is a great deal of emphasis upon process and less so in markets like India, but do not think that actually the Indian approach is increasingly going to be more useful as the world is sort of moving so fast and there's constant crisis and that need of agility rather than just thinking process oriented. I mean, back in the day, companies and organizations used to have very long, long-term strategies, and now the strategy cycle is getting less and less and it's becoming really difficult to actually plan ahead and that marriage to process that Western businesses and organizations really hold dear. Is that still going to be useful for them going forward? When as you can see, the last few months alone, I mean people have been tossing policies out of the window, left, right, and center. The world order is pivoting in all sorts of directions that you would never have imagined six months ago.

Suhel Seth (22:54):

That's a great question. The thing is, it's not about one or the other. You can't say process is bad, but look at North America. And whenever I worked there, I've always seen a palpable fear in brand managers to take risks because their lives are run by analysts who are measuring them quarter by quarter, and the base is so large. So even a 1% shakeup can really mess up the company. The Indian way is also not right. Let's pause for a minute and imagine that Indians are and they are brilliant, blah blah, blah. Why did we never create a Facebook? Why did we not create a Google? Why did we not create a Microsoft? And yet people of Indian origin are hitting Microsoft and Google? The reason we didn't create it is twofold. Number one, we are not natural innovators or we want until I would say seven, eight years ago.

(23:57):

Number two, failure is looked down upon in India in a severe manner, people castigate failure. So if Steve Jobs had been an Indian, there would've been no apple because first time around, if we had screwed up, no bank would've given him a loan. Whereas other societies are more appreciative of action and less deprecatory about failure, which is why you are given a second lease of life. Now, that to my mind, is the perfect marriage. You must allow for disruption, you must allow for innovation. You must have processed, but you must also be a risk taker where America and a lot of the developer economies suffer is their risk taking capacity has been totally diminished for fear of stock markets.

Farzana Baduel (24:50):

Suhel, thank you so much for sharing your insight. We do have a last question, Sahel. In our previous episode, our guest, Andy Coulson, left a question for you.

Andy Coulson (25:03):

So on my podcast, I like to finish by asking guests for their crisis compass. So four points of navigation to sort of manage life's tough stuff. So I'm going to cheat with your question if I may, and I'm going to ask you your next guest for a daily habit, a comfort single piece of advice that they've relied on

Suhel Seth (25:30):

One book a day.

Doug Downs (25:33):

A whole book.

Suhel Seth (25:34):

Yeah,

Doug Downs (25:35):

I can't do that.

Suhel Seth (25:37):

I can, and people laugh. People say, oh my God, doesn't it take time? It does, but it's become a habit.

Doug Downs (25:46):

Can you contextualize it? Like really absorb it? I could skim it.

Suhel Seth (25:49):

No, I can absorb it and I can quote from it. And I think, and for me, it's not about the need to do it, it's just part of my ecosystem. It's part of my DNA as it were. And the only piece of advice I have to people is read, read, read Till you Die. Because die you will. But read, read, read. Unless you read, you'll be insignificant. I wrote a book, Doug, I mean one of the many where I said, in order to be interesting, you have to be interested. So if I'm not interested in the world, or I'm not interested in Canadian politics and Mike Carney's election campaign, what discussion am I going to have with Doug on Canadian politics, just for argument's sake? So you have to be interesting in order to be interested, and you can only be interesting if you expand your mind and shrink your judgmentalism. The problem is we do it in reverse.

Farzana Baduel (27:00):

Very, very true. Now, your turn. Suhel, what question would you like to leave behind for our next guest?

Suhel Seth (27:09):

What Keeps you up at night?

Doug Downs (27:10):

You mean professionally, personally, all the above. I don't know

Suhel Seth (27:17):

Professionally either professionally or personally. You know what? He's giving more weightage too. That should give you an insight into the man.

Doug Downs (27:28):

That's interesting because what keeps me up at night is thinking about stuff I got to do the next day, and it's inevitably related to the business, which is I've taken your points, Suhel. Maybe that's not good. That's not good at all. For that, you do a to-do list. I have one. That's what I'm thinking of. I'm thinking

Farzana Baduel (27:44):

About here's one I made earlier.

Doug Downs (27:46):

Yeah, yeah. And thinking about how am I going to encourage, inspire? I have people that work with me, people that work for me. How am I clients that I work for them? How am I going to inspire? That's what rolls through my mind.

Suhel Seth (28:04):

I'll tell you, waste of time, Doug, waste of time in India, if you're a Hindu and you die, you'll be remembered for 13 days. For the 13 days, you can't have non-vegetarian food and you can't drink alcohol. After that, you'll be forgotten. The problem with modern day humanity, and in fact the Buddhas spoke about it beautifully when he announced worldly pleasures. We are insignificant people. All of us, we are irrelevant to this universe, but we behave as if the whole bloody universe is resting on our shoulders. No one cares. They don't give a toss if you get run over by a stationary bus. So enjoy your life. Stop worrying. Worrying has never sorted any issues out. Sleep has the day you can't sleep, you should worry. But if you worry, you will never sleep. So if someone asks me many years ago, I will not name the publication. They said, you are very successful and all. How would you define your success? I said, A good night's sleep. In those days I was a bachelor. I said, alone or otherwise,

Doug Downs (29:29):

Or with an elephant, but no one's judging.

Suhel Seth (29:32):

No, not yet. But point is that you should have the ability to sleep well at night or during the day.

Doug Downs (29:40):

Thanks again, Suhel.

Suhel Seth (29:42):

Is truly a blessing.

Doug Downs (29:43):

Great to spend time with you.

Suhel Seth (29:44):

Yeah. Thank you, Doug. Thank you for Farzana.

Doug Downs (29:48):

Wow. Here are the top three things. I had to pick three. I had to pick three. Three.

Farzana Baduel (29:54):

Just Three.

Doug Downs (29:55):

Yes. So many. It was hard. Number one, immediacy is eroding thoughtfulness. Suhel argues. The current obsession with reacting instantly has diminished our ability to reflect leading to knee-jerk communication that's often shallow and ill-informed. So true it is. Number two, context is king or queen. According to Suhel, modern discourse lacks depth. Because people don't take the time to understand history or nuance. He stresses opinions without context are cheap and true communication requires knowledge, reflection, and the ability to situate ideas within the broader frameworks.

Farzana Baduel (30:31):

Amen to that.

Doug Downs (30:32):

Amen. In other words, you got to know what's going on. Number three, authenticity can't be cloned, especially in India. I've often said, I'll say my thing before I say Suhel's. Once you can fake authenticity, you're set. According to Suhel. Who said it better though? When discussing brand strategy in India, he highlights the country's complexity as a civilizational legacy and not just a market. If you'd like to send a message to our guests who health, Seth, we've got his contact information in the show notes, give him a follow on X. He's just brilliant on there. And obviously the world knows with over four and a half million followers, the world knows stories and strategies as a co-production of Curzon PR, JGR communications, and stories and strategies, podcasts. If you like this episode, please leave a rating, possibly a review. Would love it if you followed us on Apple or Spotify or castbox or Geo. Thank you to our producers, Emily Page, David Olijade. Lastly, do us a favour forward this episode to one friend. Thanks for listening.