In an era of increasingly distributed global teams, the ability to communicate clearly across language barriers has become a critical business skill. Yet many organizations still prioritize flawless grammar over confidence and clarity, a misstep that can undermine productivity and inclusion, according to communications coach Peter Novak.
Appearing on the WRKdefined podcast You Should Know, Novak, founder of Strictly Speaking Group and a former 25-year professor at the University of San Francisco, argued that effective workplace communication is not about using bigger words or perfect English. Instead, it centers on clarity, confidence, and building trust across borders.
Novak, who holds a doctorate in dramaturgy and an MFA in acting, drew on his coaching experience with executives at major corporations to highlight how unconscious biases, such as the well-documented like-me bias, shape who gets promoted and believed in the workplace. He also pointed to a McGill University study on foreign accents, which revealed how delivery affects perceptions of trust and credibility.
One of the key challenges for non-native English speakers, Novak noted, is the prevalence of phrasal verbs—such as "take off," "take up," "take over," and "take down"—which can quietly derail understanding. He recommended using AI prompts to swap these for stronger, clearer verbs. Additionally, he observed that investor relations teams now run CEO earnings calls through AI to score language choice and tone of voice, underscoring the growing importance of precise communication.
Novak repeatedly framed inclusive communication as a bottom-line issue rather than a political one. "The best way to position it is that this is a business issue, that you need your communication to be as clear as possible to everyone, not just to a select few," he told the host. He pushed back on the notion that non-native speakers are solely responsible for adapting, using a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers analogy: "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels." Non-native colleagues, he argued, are translating, interpreting, and vocabulary-hunting in real time while native speakers barrel ahead.
The conversation moved into concrete tactics. Novak described building executive "voiceprints" by feeding hundreds of hours of transcripts into AI, enabling leaders to deliver scripts that sound authentically like them. He also shared a 20-question intake he uses to help new executives communicate their preferences—from pre-reads to agenda formats—to their teams. He referenced Yakov Smirnoff on the absurdity of English and contrasted Ernest Hemingway's accessibility with Oscar Wilde writing "for about 6 people." Novak noted that Latin American teams often operate trilingually in Spanish, Portuguese, and English until a monolingual American enters the room and collapses the exchange back to English. He also flagged cultural intelligence lessons from his own preparations for business in Tokyo and Dubai.
For HR vendors, the implications are clear: tools and training that foster clear, confident communication across languages can directly impact productivity, inclusion, and ultimately revenue. The episode of You Should Know featuring Peter Novak is available now wherever podcasts are heard.
