Barriers to Effective Communication

Communication–the human connection–is the key to personal and career success. Paul J. Meyer

The word communication comes from the Latin word ‘communicare that means to impart, to participate, to share or to make common. It is also the source of the English word ‘common’, so therefore whatever is common is shared by all. What do we share in communication? The answer is ‘information’, that means something to tell, in whatever way we like, or as the situation demands. Communication errors in academic writing can break your career, you can however, avail dissertation editing services to ensure that your document is language error free before submitting it for evaluation.

Communication is the lifeblood of all business. Yet work suffers because of miscommunication or not knowing the effective means of communication. Specialists in the field have made serious studies regarding these problems and come up with useful insights into what have widely come to be known as ‘barriers’ to communication.

Noise occurs primarily at the transmission level and most of the times communication gets distorted because of noise. For example: loud machinery and engines, blaring of loudspeakers, a poor telephone connection or faulty cable distorts the sound signals and affects communication.

Semantic problems arise from the expression/transmission of meaning or language barriers. It is always not necessary that what the sender wants to convey is understood in the same sense by the receiver.

Cultural differences often cause problems of communication. The same category of words, phrases, symbols, actions, colours mean different things to different cultural backgrounds, for example, in Western countries black colour is associated with death and morning while in the Far East white is the colour for the same.

Selective perception is another barrier to effective communication. It means that the receivers selectively see and hear depending upon their needs, motivation, background, experience and other personal characteristics.

Unrestricted flow of information becomes another hurdle in communication in the right way. Employees are likely to make mistakes when they become overwhelmed with too much information and which may result in the delaying the processing of information.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak”. Poor Listening can create problems in comprehension of each other in the desired way. Most of us are involved in the process of hearing which is a passive process where just the sound reaches the ear but what is required is active listening where one can understand, retain, and recall the message. Goal conflicts can lead to splitting or bifurcation of interests, thereby causing the work to suffer and non fulfilment of goals.

Extreme emotions like depression or celebration are likely to affect the effectiveness in communication. A message received when one is angry can be interpreted in all together different way as contrary to when is calm and poised. Stress also leads to building up of negative emotions, further aggravating problems.

The purpose of communication is to get your message across to others clearly and unambiguously. There is no doubt that a well organised and clear communication has greater impact of the message. Communication is the root of all business strengths and weaknesses.