Communication barriers are the main reason why communication fails.
Have you ever been talking to someone without much success? How often another person and misunderstands what you are saying? Why do you think communication is not effective?
What are communication barriers?
A communication barrier is any factor that prevents effective communication from taking place within a business organization or between different business organizations.
These are any issues that not allow a message to be received or correctly understood by the receiver.
Unfortunately, communication barriers can happen anytime and anywhere in the communication process, especially in large businesses operating in many locations and with many levels of hierarchy.
Categories of communication barriers
Communication barriers have been around as long as communication itself, which means their origins stretch back to the very beginnings of human societies.
Communication barriers can be broadly divided into two categories based on their origin including:
- Internal barriers. Fatigue, poor listening skills, lack of interest in the message, fear, mistrust, bard past experiences, problems at home, lack of emotions, etc.
- External barriers. Noise, E-Mail not working, bad phone connection, too many technical words for the audience, etc.
It is important to remember that these categories often overlap and interact with each other.
Causes of communication barriers
The main causes of barriers to effective communication can be divided into three main areas:
1. FAILURE IN ONE OF THE STAGES OF THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS:
- Wrong medium. The medium chosen might be inappropriate. For example, using the telephone to communicate complex technical information. If the message contained detailed technical language and flow diagrams, trying to explain these over a mobile phone could lead to incorrect understanding. If a receiver forgot part of a long message given to them orally, then a written version would have been more appropriate.
- Misleading or incomplete message. It would result in poor understanding – ‘send the goods soon’ may be interpreted as being tomorrow when in fact the sender meant ‘now, or as soon as possible’.
- Language too complex or technical. It will be too difficult for the receiver to understand. The excessive use of technical language or jargon– terms that are understood by a specific group but not by others – may prevent the receiver from being able to comprehend what is required. Messages sent to branches or staff in another country may not be understood unless they are translated into the local language.
- Too much information. There is a lot being communicated in one message. If there more information than is actually necessary for the receiver to respond in the right way – the threat of information overload leads to ‘noise’, which is unnecessary data that actually prevent the receiver from grasping the important elements of the message.
- Channel of communication is too long. If the channel of communication is too long– the channel is the route through which a message is communicated from sender to receiver, as in tall hierarchical organizations – then messages will be slow to reach their intended receiver and they may become distorted or change their meaning on the way. This problem is particularly significant in large organizations.
2. POOR ATTITUDE OF THE SENDER OF RECEIVER:
- Lack of trust. There is no trust and respect between the sender and receiver. If the sender is not trusted– perhaps because of previous misleading messages or unpopular decisions – then the receiver may be unwilling to listen to or read the message carefully.
- Unmotivated or alienated workers. Demotivated workers do not listen to the message properly, they make poor receivers. If workers have never been consulted on important issues before, then they may become very suspicious if the management style seems to be changing towards a more participative one. Workers with little interest in their work will not want to take the trouble to ensure that communication is effective. Poorly disciplined workers do not pass on the message to others.
- Intermediaries. Those on the communication channel – may decide not to pass on a message, or to change it, if they are poorly motivated. This could occur, for example, if there has been a supplier’s query about an order or a customer complaint.
- Poor opinion about the receiver. The sender may have such a poor perceptionof the receiver that no effort is made to ensure clarity of message or to check on understanding.
3. PHYSICAL REASONS:
- Too much noise. There might be too much noise between the sender and receiver. Noisy factories are not the best environment for communication. This indicates that the poor quality of the external environment can limit effective communication.
- Long distance between the sender and receiver. The further apart the sender and receiver are the more difficult it is to have face-to-face conversations. However, electronic communication methods such as video-conferencing, Skype and Facetime have significantly reduced this particular problem. Geographical distance can inhibit effective communication – certainly interpersonal communication will be very difficult. Modern electronic methods, such as video-conferencing, are designed to overcome some of these problems.
Types of communication barriers
There are five types of communication barriers such as:
- Perceptual and language differences. Perceptions is individual interpretation, and because perceptions are unique the idea you want to express differs from other people’s perceptions. The more experiences people share, the more likely they will be to understand each other.
- Restrictive environments. The communication climate suffers when information is distorted, fragmented, or blocked by an authoritarian style of management.
- Distractions. Physical or emotional distractions block the communicating process.
- Deceptive tactics. Using deceptive tactics to manipulate receivers blocks communication and ultimately leads to failure.
- Information overload. Today business people are plagued by message overload and that make difficult to discriminate between useful and useless information.
These types of barriers to effective communication can also be grouped in the following way:
A. TRANSMISSION:
- Noise. Too much background noise in the environment can cause transmission of a message to fail
- Incorrect channel. Passing a message through the incorrect channel can cause distortion of the message to occur and lengthen the time taken for the message to be communicated.
- Incorrect medium or media. Communicating using the wrong media can put across the wrong message i.e. pinning a formal communication on a notice board may detract from its important message.
- Contradictions. When different people instruct staff to do two different things, problems arise.
- Poor timing.
B. LANGUAGE:
- Different language. Can be a problem, especially in multinational business or those who supply foreign clients.
- Accents.
- Slang. Slang stops people or groups from understanding the message as it can be just like hearing half a conversation in a foreign language.
- Jargon. Especially difficult for customers in high tech fields, finance and law.
- Verbosity. Using too many words instead of being short and to the point can mean that the meaning of a message is lost.
C. RECEPTION:
- Information overload. Giving out too much information at one time often results in none of the information being remembered or acted on correctly.
- Incomplete information.
- Stereotypes. Subconsciously predicting the response that a person will give to a communication based on gender, race, age, education etc. may stop the actual response from being communicated effectively.
- Emotional state. A person who is in a heightened emotional state (i.e. overexcited, upset, etc.) will have difficulty in comprehending any message that is being communicated to them.
- Lack of interest. As I am sure you will know, trying to communicate to someone who is bored is very difficult! Trying to keep someone’s interest will always make communication more effective.
Additionally, communication barriers can result from business-specific factors including:
- Selective reporting.
- Corporate culture.
- Internal politics.
- Poor management.
- Tall hierarchical structures
- Time zones.
- Geographical locations.
- Cost.
- Access to technology.
- Different status of sender and receiver.
- Conflict between parties.
- Poor presentation skills.
- Negative body language.
- Physiological impairment such as hearing or seeing disabilities.
We have seen the importance to businesses of effective communication. We have also seen that different messages require different methods of communication while avoid the whole magnitude of communication barriers. When they occur and are not properly dealt with, choosing the best method for communication between two or more people will not guarantee effective communication.
