Mastering Global Communication: How to Communicate with Clarity, Confidence, and Impact

In a recent episode of the WRKdefined podcast You Should Know, communications coach Peter Novak challenged the notion that strong workplace communication relies on big words or flawless English. Instead, he argued, clarity, confidence, and trust are the true drivers—especially as global teams become more distributed.

Novak, founder of Strictly Speaking Group and a former professor at the University of San Francisco, drew on his coaching experience with executives at major corporations to offer a practical playbook for leading multilingual teams. He highlighted how unconscious biases like the "like-me bias" shape promotion and credibility, and pointed to a McGill University study linking foreign accents to perceptions of trust and credibility. He also revealed that investor relations teams now use AI to score CEO earnings calls for language choice and tone.

One of Novak's key insights was the trouble caused by phrasal verbs—such as "take off," "take up," and "take over"—which can derail non-native English speakers. He suggested using AI prompts to swap them for stronger, clearer verbs. But he also emphasized that native speakers should adapt, not just non-native colleagues. "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels," Novak said, noting that non-native speakers are translating and interpreting in real time while native speakers barrel ahead.

Novak reframed 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 host William. He also shared concrete tactics, such as building executive voiceprints by feeding hundreds of hours of transcripts into AI so leaders can deliver scripts that sound authentic, and using a 20-question intake to help executives tell their teams exactly how they want to be communicated with—from pre-reads to agenda formats.

Throughout the conversation, Novak referenced cultural intelligence lessons from his own preparation for business in Tokyo and Dubai, and noted how Latin American teams often operate trilingually until a monolingual American enters the room and collapses the exchange back to English. He contrasted Ernest Hemingway's accessibility with Oscar Wilde's writing "for about 6 people," using Yakov Smirnoff's humor to highlight the absurdity of English.

For anyone leading global teams or navigating cross-cultural communication, Novak's insights offer a clear path forward: prioritize clarity, leverage AI wisely, and remember that effective communication is everyone's responsibility.