Agreed - this is pragmatic advice. It definitely works on an individual level. But if this is something acceptable to go work on yourself, from the other side of the table, does it automatically become ok to judge people on?

There's a logical inconsistency between saying a) Don't judge people on their accents, listen to the message and b) Fix your accent.

To pg's credit I think he frames this purely on efficacy of communication ( it's similar to typing out better phrased emails) but that ignores the other reasons people with accents get judged.