English Is the Language of Global Business. That Doesn’t Make It Neutral.

15 Jun English Is the Language of Global Business. That Doesn’t Make It Neutral.

Insights from Speakeasy Faculty Daniel Frysh and Jorge Barria

English is the default language of global business. Most people accept that as a given. Fewer stop to ask what that requires from the people working in their second or third language.

We put that question to two faculty members who have lived it from very different vantage points. Daniel Frysh grew up in an international family, attended school with students from across the world and has spent years working with global teams across Europe, APAC and beyond.

Jorge Barria learned English as a second language, built his career in the U.S. and has spent years helping professionals—many of them non-native speakers—find their confidence in a language that isn’t their first. Together, they have a lot to say about what gets lost when we assume a shared language means shared understanding.

The Advantage Native Speakers Don’t See

For native English speakers in a global room, the language itself is an asset so familiar it becomes invisible.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Daniel says. “The advantage is that it’s your native language. You can prepare as if this is the language everyone will be working in. The disadvantage is the assumption that your idioms will follow.”

He points to an example from an exercise that referenced a “mom and pop” competitor. For American participants, the phrase is unremarkable. For international participants, it landed as literal. “They thought it meant their mother and father. Nobody flagged it because nobody knew to flag it. The content was created with Americans in mind, and it was assumed it would translate directly. It very often doesn’t.”

Jorge sees the same blind spot from the other side. “When I came to the U.S., I spoke English already. But when I arrived in Kentucky, I had a hard time understanding my own professors because of the mumbling.” He pauses on that. “In Latin America, because of how we form our vowels, you don’t hear many people mumble. Here, it was completely unexpected.”

The point both are making is the same—fluency in a language does not guarantee clarity across cultures. And native speakers are often the last to realize it.

What It Costs to Work in Your Second Language

The cognitive load of working in a second language is easy to underestimate from the outside. From the inside, it’s constant.

“It depends on how fluent someone is,” Daniel says, “but it can cost a lot, especially in preparation and in feeling confident when speaking.”

Jorge frames it around identity. “Many clients tell us from the start, ‘I don’t want to change who I am.’ And the first thing we clarify is that it’s not about changing who you are. It’s about complementing who you already are.”

He reflects on his own experience. “When I worked in Kentucky, I was known as the guy with the foreign accent. And I was okay with that. It wasn’t bad. It was just how they recognized me. It became a differentiator. The question is whether it’s a good differentiator. That’s what we help people work toward.”

What both have seen is that the real cost isn’t linguistic—it’s confidence. “When clients who have a foreign accent come into a class and see that I also have a foreign accent,” Jorge says, “I think they realize it can be done. They leave not just more confident, but more able to embrace that accent as part of their identity.”

Daniel points to something similar in how leaders carry themselves under that pressure. “First, trusting themselves that they got to this position for a reason. And then owning their time and space. Who they are as a person should be leading the way forward, not whether their English is perfect.”

What Native Speakers Do That Makes Communication Harder

If non-native speakers carry the cognitive load, native speakers often add to it without realizing it.

At the top of both lists: idioms. “By and large,” Daniel says, deploying one immediately, “that’s the biggest issue. We make the assumption and we don’t adjust what we’re saying. It’s not about dumbing it down—that’s condescending. It’s about awareness.”

Jorge adds vocabulary and sentence structure to the list. “Keep sentences short. Keep the vocabulary simple, not because the person is not intelligent, but because their English vocabulary may not be as rich. And watch verb tenses. ‘Would have been told’ is proper English. But in a global meeting, you want to keep it very, very simple.”

Speed comes up for both. “It’s not the volume,” Jorge is quick to note. “You hear the famous joke—someone repeating themselves louder, as if that helps. It doesn’t. It’s the clarity. Slowing down does.”

But the subtler issue, Daniel says, is what doesn’t happen after the speaking stops. “When we’re done, we don’t take the time to ask: was that clear? Does anyone have questions? Did I say it in a way that made sense?”

He’s not advocating for a formal check-in every time, but for creating time for clarification. “You can help people by giving them the space to ask questions. If you don’t take that time, you’ll never know what didn’t land.”

Jorge points to one more pattern that tends to backfire: humor. “Levity helps. Humor, outstanding. But with jokes, one has to be extremely careful.”

He recalls a workshop where a presenter made a generalization about a national group, intending it as warmth. Someone from that country was in the room. “It wasn’t degrading, but it completely changed the tone. In a global room, you should never speak in absolutes about a culture. Nothing is absolute.”

What Gets Misread as a Lack of Confidence

In a global team, communication behaviors get interpreted through the listener’s own cultural lens. What comes across as confidence in one context comes across as something else entirely in another.

For non-native speakers, speaking too fast is the most common trap. “They think speed signals competence,” Daniel says. “What it actually signals is anxiety. And when you add filler words on top of that, you lose the room.”

Jorge points to something more fundamental—the body. “Even if the audience cannot fully understand the words, the visual complements the message. Shaping with your hands, for example—if I say ‘bridge’ and shape it with my hands, they get the image. They might not have caught every word, but they got the point.”

He comes back to a principle he returns to often in his coaching: “How hard are you making the listener work to understand you? If they have to work too hard, you’ve already lost them, regardless of how correct your language is.”

For native speakers, the confidence trap is different and less visible. “American confidence,” Daniel observes, “can very easily look like arrogance overseas. And once that perception sets in, people stop engaging honestly with you. They give you the answer they think you want, not the one that’s true.”

What Leaders Can Do Differently

What does it look like when a leader gets this right? Both point to the same starting place—preparation that goes deeper than the agenda.

“Familiarize yourself with the audience,” Jorge says. “Not in general terms. Really find out about each person; their background, their familiarity with the topic, their fluency, not just in the language but in the technical language of the field.”

He anticipates the objection. “I know. You’re busy. But think about the cost of not doing it. If someone leaves that room feeling like their role doesn’t matter to you, how comfortable will they be coming to you next time with a problem or an idea? Leaders need followers.”

Daniel encourages leaders to be more aware of potential differences. “Global leaders don’t need a script for every culture. What they need is to stop assuming their own communication habits are neutral.”

Jorge closes on something harder to teach. “Patience. I’m not sure it can be taught, but it can be learned. Being willing to meet people where they are, without making them feel uncomfortable or dumb, is a skill. And it’s marketable. More than most people realize.”

A shared language can create the illusion that everyone is working from the same understanding. That’s where leaders have to be careful.

The goal isn’t to make everyone sound the same. It’s to notice who is carrying the burden of understanding, where the room may be relying on assumptions and what needs to change so people can participate fully.

When communication gets easier to receive, the business gets better information.