Friday, 14 December 2012 | 08:15 | 0 Sweet Cupcake

Barriers to Effective Communication

Definition : The barriers that breakdown the communication between sender and receiver.

Barriers to effective communication mean the reasons for a breakdown in communication. These breakdowns may be for arising due to

Problem with sender

The sender may use technical language or may use 'jargons' which are difficult to understand.
The sender may speak too quickly which makes it difficult to interpret what he is saying.
The sender initiates a wrong message.
The message send by the sender may be too long and due to this the main point to be emphasized may get lost.
The sender may have a wrong opinion or perception of the receiver and may not put effort to put across the message in an effective way.

Problem with medium

The message may be lost while transmitting.
Using an inappropriate medium may result in the less effective communication.
A longer channel of communication will result in distortion of the message and it may lost its original meaning.
There is lots of physical disturbances in channel of communication used.

Problem with the receiver

The receiver might not be paying attention and thus the message may lost its impact.
In many cases, the sender might not be trusted by the receiver and may not act in the intended way.
The receiver may not have the necessary skills to understand the message.

Problem with the feedback

The feedback may be missing or distorted

1. Physical Barriers: this has to do with poor or outdated equipment used during communications, background noise, poor lighting, temperatures that are too hot or too cold.

2. Attitudes: emotions like anger or sadness can taint objectivity. Also being extremely nervous, having a personal agenda or “needing to be right no matter what” can make communications less than effective. This is also known as “Emotional Noise”.

3. Language: this can seem like an easy one, but even people speaking the same language can have difficulty understanding each other if they are from different generations or from different regions of the same country. Slang, professional jargon and regional colloquialisms can even hurt communicators with the best intentions.

4. Physiological Barriers: ill health, poor eyesight or hearing difficulties, pain.

5. Problems with Structure Design: companies or institutions can have organization structures that are not clear, which can make communications difficult. Also to blame for faulty communications are bad information systems, and lack of supervision or training of the people involved.

6. Cultural Noise: people sometimes make stereotypical assumptions about others based on their cultural background.

7. Lack of Common Experience: it’s a great idea to use examples or stories to explain a point that is being discussed. However, if the speaker and the audience cannot relate to these examples because they do not have the same knowledge or have not shared the same experiences then this tool will be ineffective.

8. Ambiguity and Abstractions Overuse: leaving things half-said, using too many generalizations, proverbs or sayings, can all lead to communications that are not clear and that can lend themselves to misinterpretations.

9. Information Overload: it takes time to process a lot of information and too many details can overwhelm and distract the audience from the important topics. Keep it Simple, Sweetie.

10. Assumptions and Jumping to Conclusions: This can make someone reach a decision about something before listening to all the facts.