By Dr Tanya Finnie

When I first moved to Australia, I desperately wanted to sound Australian. No one actually told me to change the way I spoke. I applied for eighty six jobs before I got employed and I was well qualified with great experiences. I understood that sounding more Australian made life easier.

I learned quickly that Australians tend to lift the pitch at the end of a sentence, turning statements into something softer, more approachable. Almost like a question.

So I practised it for weeks.

At one point, when I was working as a Contiki tour guide, coming from a strong Afrikaans background, I used to strategically seat the Australians at the back of the bus. Not because I disliked them. Quite the opposite. I was deeply conscious of how difficult I found some of the accents to understand, despite the fact we were all technically speaking English.

I’m not particularly proud of that now, but it taught me something important about the hidden labour of navigating culture.

People often assume cross-cultural communication is simply about language.It isn’t.

It’s about translation. And translation is hard work.

Not just literal translation, where you mentally convert words from one language into another before responding, although that certainly happens. I mean the constant emotional and cognitive calculation happening underneath the conversation.

Am I speaking too directly?
Too softly?
Too formally?
Too emotionally?
Does my accent make me sound less competent?
Will this joke land?
Do I sound intelligent enough?
Warm enough?
Confident enough?
Too confident?

For many people, particularly migrants, multilingual employees, or those working outside the dominant workplace culture, work is happening on two levels simultaneously.

You’re doing the job. And you’re translating yourself while you do it.

Over time, some of this becomes easier. The brain adapts. Patterns become familiar. You stop consciously thinking about every interaction.

But that doesn’t mean the labour disappears entirely.

I still notice myself adjusting depending on the room I’m in. Slowing down certain words. Softening others. Reading reactions carefully. Watching for signals about what version of myself feels most acceptable here.

Most workplaces dramatically underestimate the cognitive load this creates.

And the people carrying it are often some of the most observant people in the organisation, because when you learn a culture from the outside, you become highly attuned to its unwritten rules.

You notice whose communication style gets rewarded.
Whose accent gets interrupted.
Whose ideas land differently depending on who says them.
Who feels comfortable speaking immediately.
And who first scans the room to assess the risk.

This is why psychological safety and cultural intelligence cannot be separated.

A workplace may look inclusive on paper while still quietly exhausting the people who are constantly translating themselves to survive within it.

The question leaders should be asking is not simply: “Do people feel welcome here?”

It’s: “How much energy are people spending trying to fit here?”

Because the more energy people spend managing perception, the less energy they have available for creativity, innovation, contribution, and honest conversation.

Over time, that constant self-monitoring wears people down.  Quietly.

And eventually, some people stop contributing as freely, not because they lack ideas, but because navigating the room starts costing too much energy.

One uncomfortable question:

Are your people genuinely safe to speak up, even when they sound different, communicate differently, or see the world differently from the dominant voice in the room?