The way Ms Malavika would speak to her Australian boss was very different from the way she would speak to her team in India. She had to give her boss a context on what was happening in the Indian market. There had to be a very clear agenda. But when speaking to her Indian team, she was more informal and able to take many shortcuts. And she did not have to provide context because everyone understood what was going on.

In certain critical situations like downsizing, the way we hold the conversation is very different from when we are giving people good news. We love to have easier conversations but hate the tough ones: sacking a person, not giving them an increment, or even sacking a client sometimes.

During tough conversations, we must change our tone. But we should be honest. if we tell one lie, we will have to tell 6 more to cover it up. Ms Malavika believes it's much easier not to lie. So, she tells people the way it is. That doesn't make her very popular. But it makes her respected.

Authenticity and the honesty help us to tide over tough situations. As leaders, we will have to say things that are not very pleasant. We should speak fairly. We must be human, and humane.

No is a tough word. But it is a very effective word. Most of us don't say no. We say, maybe. So, as leaders, that’s something we must learn to say.

Ms Malavika believes that to be a good communicator and a good leader, we should hang up our ego. When we make a mistake, it’s always better to say sorry. If her team made a mistake, Ms Malavika would take the blame. The buck stopped always with her. If people yelled, she would listen. One of the ways to mitigate anger is to just keep quiet and let the other person run out of steam. But saying sorry and accepting that we made a mistake is critical. The moment we do that the whole situation diffuses.

Now legally, sometimes we cannot admit to a fault because we can be sued, especially in the US. We need to word it properly, but we can still say sorry, legally, correctly. The word sorry is as important in communication as the word no.

These days, the frontline staff are not being trained correctly. In the past, we had strong bosses who would train, coach and mentor their team members. The system functioned like a corporate gurukul. Today the bosses are failing in this role. Ms Malavika calls this the complete breakdown of corporate culture.

For example, in the case of airlines, the front facing stewardesses or ground staff have not been trained how to handle an ugly or crisis situation. Across the entire corporate hierarchy, people are not focusing on training. And that is the bigger problem. It is also the result of our education system. We're not trained to say: I'm sorry I made a mistake. We're always justifying our mistakes. Even otherwise, training has taken a backseat. For example, air hostesses are not trained to make announcements.

Ms Malavika grew up in a generation where no concessions were given to women. They had to be the best to qualify for the job. The young women of today should also endeavour to be the best out there.

Many women are not trained to communicate. They feel shy. But they should realize that a lot of men are equally shy. We don't need to be an alpha personality to be heard. But we need to be knowledgeable. The moment we have expertise and knowledge, people listen to us, and our gender becomes completely irrelevant.

We are conditioned culturally to bother about what others will think or say? But as long as we know what we are doing and clear about what we are saying, how do they matter?

We should go with them for the presentation but allow them to present. We should make them practice with us before the meeting and then make them present. We should tell them that we are always there if they get stuck. When we do this on a regular basis, they will build their self-confidence. And slowly, they will not need us anymore. We need to tell them that it's fine if they fail. We tend to celebrate success but not failure. And if we don't fail, we are never going to learn.

The first time Ms Malavika presented at IIM Bangalore about 5 years after her graduation. It was horrendous. But she picked herself up and started presenting.

When coaching a junior, we should give her some time. If she doesn't pick it up, say in 3 or 4 months, there is an inherent problem. We should use her for the back end and get another person to make the presentation.

The topic must come from our heart. We should not do a talk, unless it appeals to us. We should also practice hard. And that is something for which TED has a clear process. And as we practise on the screen for a TED talk, we realize that even a seasoned presenter can make many mistakes. A time span of 6 to 7 min, for a TED talk is more than enough. Most of us can't carry on for longer without slides. Moreover, the attention spans are becoming shorter. During TED talks, it is a little intimidating to stand within a red circle and not to be able to move around. But as long the words come from our heart, we will be ok.

Barack Obama is a good speaker. He had a spontaneity initially. Especially when he was campaigning for his first term in office. And that was why he got elected. But later, he became very Washington like and correct. So, he lost the spark. He was very fluent, but the words didn’t come from his heart anymore. It was very practiced and robotic. That happens with many motivational speakers. They find a formula. And then after a while it becomes formula driven and the spontaneity is gone.

Shashi Tharoor has a great vocabulary. His usage of words is perfect. He is good to look at. But Mr Tharoor is not a presenter. He is an orator. In corporate settings, presentations are more relevant than speeches. Moreover, it needs more intellect and a certain background reading to understand what Mr Tharoor is conveying. Ms Malvika does play some of Mr Tharoor’s videos to the class. She gets mixed reactions from students. Some of them love him while others do not like him so much because they do not get the context. So, Mr Tharoor is for the intelligent, not for the masses.

One of the challenges is that participants keep quiet and do not even switch on their camera. Ms Malavika tries to make her sessions very interactive by cold calling and asking questions. She encourages people who are shy to use the chat. After a couple of sessions, she gets a huge amount of class participation. In fact, she has to control the class participation.

In live classes it is a little easier to engage the students. Ms Malavika makes the classes very experiential. She asks people to come and write on the board and present. She explains a little bit of theory and then makes them talk about it. She asks them to do secondary research in the class and then present what they do.

Swami Vivekananda, Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhiji and others were great speakers and followed the time trusted communication principles. They were very effective at that point in time because the context was suitable. But Ms Malavika is not very sure whether they would be effective in today's age. The distractions today are far more. And people are getting so used to video as a format.

Listening to speeches is becoming very tiresome. Most people want short podcasts. So, listening as an art has gone down. Long speeches would not be so effective in today's attention deficit world.

Ms Malavika shares with the students many caselets. She asks them to talk about their personal experiences. She gives them the frameworks and then asks them to apply them and come back. She also does a lot of zoom sessions, one to one or in small groups to connect with them. This consumes some additional time but is very effective.

Hitler was able to work people up into a frenzy because he tapped into a very strong human insecurity which the Germans had at that point against the Jews. And that is perhaps why his rhetoric was so powerful and so impactful. So, effectiveness is very contextual, time specific and depends on the ability to hit the right nerve.

Social media and technology are not going anywhere. We should not be ostriches and bury our heads in the sand. We should harness these tools for our benefit.

Due to the rise of AI, written communication is no longer relevant. We can just put our text through an AI editor and get what we need. And then we can humanize it. But verbal communication will still have an important role.

We must certainly use tech, but then we should humanize it and make it authentic. AI does give us a great structure. But it doesn't give us the human touch. AI sometimes produces content that sounds very mechanistic and old fashioned. We must bring it to today's age by humanizing it. Of course we should also train the algorithms to suit us. And as leaders, we need to understand that social media is also not going anywhere. We must use it to our benefit, but of course in moderation.

During speeches and presentations, body language corresponds to silent communication. We are communicating a lot without saying anything. In marketing, silent communication happens through the logos, symbols, colours, visuals, music, etc.