Barriers Of Effective
Communication?
BARRIERS OF EFFECTIVE
COMMUNICATION
NOISE
Semantic Problems
Goal Conflicts
Poor Planning
Poor Listening
Poor Retention
Poor transmission
Overloaded
Poor timing
Filtered
Wrong Assumption
Cultural Barriers
In Sufficient Time
Period
Framed New Reference
Offensive
Emotion & Worry
Explanations
A message is successful
only when both the sender and the receiver perceive it in the same way. This
process leaves room for error, with messages often misinterpreted by one or
more of the parties involved. This causes unnecessary confusion and counter
productivity.
It is important to
understand the causes of communication breakdown.
NOISE
Noise is the first and
foremost barrier to communication. It means “interference that occurs in a
signal and prevents you from hearing sounds properly.” In a factory, for
example, the continuous noise made by machines makes oral communication
difficult. In the same way some technical problem in a public address system or
a static in a telephone or television cable will distort the sound signal and
affect communication. Adverse weather conditions or some fault in the
ultramodern telecommunication systems may also spoil the effect.
Noise does not mean only
this. It also encompasses many other factors that may exist at the end of
sender as well as that of the receiver. The sender may resort to ambiguous or
confusing signals. The receiver may mess up the message owing to inattention or
may spoil decoding because of wrong or unexpected interpretation. The
receiver’s prejudices may also come in the way of his understanding the message
in the right spirit. We must therefore keep in mind that communication is
always likely to be spoilt by ‘noise’ that stands for so many things. Following
areparts of noise.
SEMANTIC PROBLEMS (same
word different meaning same language)
Semantics is the systematic
study of meaning. That is why the problems arising from expression or
transmission of meaning in communication are called semantic problems. Oral or
written communication is based on words. And words, limited in number, may be
used in unlimited ways. The meaning is in the mind of the sender and also in
that of the receiver. But it is not always necessary for the meaning in the
mind of the sender to be the same as in the mind of receiver. Much, therefore,
depends on how the sender encodes This message.
The sender has to take care
that the receiver does not misconstrue his message, and gets the intended
meaning. Quite often it does not happen in this way. That leads to semantic
problems. it can be ensured only if we aim at clarity, simplicity and brevity
so that the receiver gets the intended meaning.
GOAL CONFLICTS
Very often clashes of the
goals of various units and sub-units of an organisation lead to communication
breakdowns. Communication should serve as a conflict-reduction exercise. But
the goal conflicts act as communication reduction mechanisms. Different units
internalise their own goals, and that leads to the splitting or bifurcation of
interests in the organisation.
Poor Planning
Communication is not a
casual affair. Unfortunately many people take it lightly. The result is that
the message to be sent across may not be carefully planned. There are
innumerable examples of people who would
give an ill-planned, long-winding lecture while a short presentation with
tables or graphs would be sufficient. Such an event would turn into one of
miscommunication. In the same way some people may not care to choose a suitable
time and place that are so very necessary for effective communication.
Managers have to
communicate individually with people at different levels — superiors,
subordinates, peers, customers and public figures. The oral mode, of communication
is easy, time saving, and of functionally helpful in resolving issues. But oral
communication demands great control and communicative competence to be
successful.
POOR LISTENING
HEARING IS WITH EAR BUT
LISTENING IS WITH HEART
Poor listening may lead to
serious communication problems. Too many people are interested in talking, and
mostly talking about themselves. They are so much involved with themselves that
they do not have patience to listen. The result is that they are not interested
in the speaker whose words go waste. Everybody knows about the importance of
listening, but very few actually practice patient, active and empathic
listening. That I why. so many communication problems crop up. Poor listening
accounts for incomplete information and also poor retention. One may simply not
get the desired result if this keeps on happening.
POOR RETENTION
As a corollary to the
problem mentioned above, it is worth noting that people are also likely to
forget messages reaching them. There from arises the necessity to repeat the
message and use more than one medium to communicate the same message.
Poor Transmission
Communication often suffers
or gets diluted when messages pass on from person to person in a series of
transmissions. They get diluted on the way. Special care has to be taken that
the intended message reaches the person concerned.
Pooor information over
load.
Unchecked inflow of
information, very often becomes another barrier to communication. It may stifle
the senior executive or bore and frustrate him. When people are bogged down
with too much information they are likely to make errors, They may also delay
processing or responding to information/message at least for sometime.
And delay may become a habit, causing serious communication problems. People
may also become selective in their response, and selectivity is not
communication-friendly. On the other hand, it is a communication problem.
Poor Timing - A last moment communication with deadline may put too
much pressure on the receiver and may result in resentment.
Inappropriate Channel - Poor choice of channel of communication can also be
contributory to them is understanding of the message.
Network Breakdown - Sometime staff may forget to forward a letter or there
may be professional jealousy resulting
in closed channel.
SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL
BARRIERS (SAME LEVEL PERSON)
The attitudes and opinions,
pace in society and status-consciousness arising from one’s position in the
hierarchical structure of the organization, one’s relations with peers,
seniors, juniors and family background -all these deeply affect one’s ability
to communicate both as a sender and receiver. Status consciousness is widely
known to be a serious communication barrier in organisations. It eas t
psychological distancing which further leads to breakdown of communication or
miscommunication. Often it is seen that a man high up in an organisation builds up a wall around himself. This restricts participation of the less powerful in decision making.
In the same way ones family background formulates one’s attitude and
communication skills.
FRAME OF REFERENCE
Frame of reference is another barriers in communication. Every individual has a unique
frame of reference formed by a consequences of his experiences, education, culture, attitude and many other
elements, resulting in biases and different
experiences in a communication situation.
WRONG ASSUMPTIONS .
Quite often we act on
assumptions, without caring to seek clarification for them. We should make all
possible efforts to maintain our goodwill and not act impulsively on
assumptions. If, for example, a customer writes to us that he would like to
visit our office or factory without telling us that he would like to be picked
up and we assume that he will manage to come on his own it may lead to loss
of goodwill. So it is
necessary to be circumspect in such matters
Selective perception.
Perception provides each of
us with a unique view of the world — a view
some times related to, but not necessarily identical with that held by others.
Selective perception means that the receivers selectively see and hear
depending upon their needs, background, motivations, experience and other
personal characteristics.
While decoding the
messages, most protect their own interests and expectations into process of
communication leading to a particular kind of feedback that may become a
communication problem.
Filtering (MANIPULATIVE)
Filtering means that the
sender of a message manipulates information in such a way that it will be seen
more favourably by the receiver. A manager, for example, likes to tell his boss
what he feels his boss wants to hear. In this process he is filtering
information. The net result is that the man at the top never gets objective
information. In the same way, the people at the lower levels condense and synthesise
information so as to get maximum benefits for themselves. They hold back or
ignore some important part of information. The more vertical levels in the
organisation, the more chances there are for filtering. This is a very
frequently occurring communication problem.
Threat
CULTURAL BARRIERS
We live in a culturally
diverse world ,and so could encounter individuals from different races,
religions, and nationalities . There is often anxiety surrounding unfamiliar
cultures. What manners are acceptable? What will offend a person from a very
different background? It can be paralyzing to deal with other people if we do
not know what to expect Cultural differences often come up as communication
barriers. We have to be specially careful in
this regard as now we have to operate in international environment. The same category of words, phrases, symbols, actions,
colours mean different things to people of different countries or different
cultural backgrounds. For example, in the United
States people love to be called by their first names while in Britain, and to a
large extent also in India, people like to be addressed by their last name. In
the North American States a sign of ‘0’ made with the forefinger and thumb
stands for ‘OK’ while in the Southern States it is construed as obscenity.
The desire to communicate
is the first step in being effective. The desire
to connect with another human being is the
bond that will express itself clearly. A genuine effort to understand another
person goes a long way in the path to communication. Knowing about other
cultures and being proactive will help to develop these skills.
Insufficient period for
adjustment.
(MAN NEED SILENCE IN
TENSION AND WIFE FORCES TO SPEAK THEN AND THERE)
It is a fact well known to
all that people respond to change in different ways. They take their own time
to adjust to any news or proposal for change. While the purpose of
communication is to effect change, it should be kept in mind that the employees
whose duties, shifts etc., are going to be changed should be given sufficient
time. Only then the communication will be effective.
OFFENSIVE STYLE OF
COMMUNICATION
It is quite obvious that
offensive style of communication leads to communication breakdown. It is a
rather sensitive point, If a manager sends a message in such a way that the
workers/juniors become defensive their relations get strained and communication
suffers. Hence it is absolutely necessary for the management to adopt a
persuasive style of communication.
FEAR.
EMOTIONS
FEAR EMOTIONS
Emotions play a very important role in our life. Both
encoding and decoding of messages are influenced by our emotions. A message
received when we are emotionally worked up will have a different meaning for us
than when we are calm and composed. Anger is the worst emotion and enemy of
communication.
WORRIED
Written communication
Planning Business Messages
Bird eye view of
Business Message
Written communication
Planning Business Messages
