Barriers of Effective Communication

In general, it is the process by which individuals share and cooperate is called as Communication. In organizational perspective communication may be viewed as “flow of material, information, perception, and understanding between various parts and members in the organization”. It includes all aspects of communication upwards, downwards, lateral, speaking, writing, listening, reading, methods, median, modes, channels, networks, flow, interpersonal, intra-personal, inter organizational & intra organizational issues, as quoted by Vardhaman & Halterman.

Communication process can be described as an interpersonal process of sending and receiving symbols with meaning attached to it. Information is enclosed in a package and is channelled and imparted by a sender to a receiver via some medium.

Barriers of Communication: There are number of Interpersonal and intra personal barriers and environmental barriers that explain why the message decoded by the receiver is often different from the one that is intended by the sender.

Physical Barriers:

The competing stimulus- e.g. loud music, traffic noise.

Environmental stress- High temperature and humidity, Poor ventilation.

Subjective Stress- Sleeplessness, ill health, mood variations.

Filtering: It refers to a sender manipulating information so that it will be seen more favorably by the receiver.

Limitations of Sender’s capacity: Sender is often unable to put across his message in a language and form understandable to receiver because of wrong medium or uses medium in a confusing manner.

Limitations of Receiver’s capacity: It depends on his span of attention, his intelligence level, his understanding level of the subject and his memory.

Selective Perception: The receiver selectively sees and hear based on their needs, motivations, experience, background and other personal characteristics.

Information Overload: When the information we have to work exceeds our processing capacity as indicated by research.

Barrier of All-ness: It is the attitude of people with closed minds. They assume they know everything about a subject and are not prepared to believe that they can be mistaken.

Either/Or Orientation: We interpret messages in extremely negative or positive ways, wrong or right, black or white terms.

Snap Reactions: The listener responds speedily to the communicator’s message pronouncing it favorable or unfavorable even before communication is complete.

Tendency to Evaluate: Premature evaluation and judging tendency is a serious barrier. Resistances to change- New ideas that do not support our own views are resisted outright.

Defensiveness: When people feel that they are being threatened, they tend to react in ways that reduce their ability to achieve mutual understanding.

Linguistic & Cultural Barriers: Sender’s success is determined in the way in which he handles written and spoken words. Words are Symbols. Language is ambiguous.

Mechanical Barriers: These are raised by channels employed for interpersonal group or mass communication. E.g. Jargons, wrong placement of speakers, too small font size in magazine.

Other barriers include Personal expertise, Rules and Regulation Arrogance, Timing, Respect and confidentiality.

Organizations owe their existence to Communication. Most problems in business are caused by poor communication. So, understanding and mastering the art of effective communication is very important to every member of organization.