Barriers of communication

Barriers of communication

 

A barrier to communication is defined as “obstacles in a workplace that prevents effective exchange of ideas or thoughts”, this can be summarized to say that anything which prevents understanding of a message is a barrier to communication. 

A barrier can:

·        Prevent a message from being heard

·        Prevent a message from being understood

·        Result in some kind of misinterpretation of a message

General communication:

One barrier in general communication used is language, specifically I am referring to terminology being used, terminology is a big barrier because there are people in the world that will not understand the terminology that is used for example in Ireland, an example of this would be if an Irish person started talking to a person from Germany for example and the Irish man said “what’s the craic” then the German person might not understand the terminology that is being used and as a result of this the barrier of language would be put up on the conversation. Sometimes using simple language can cause the listener to become bored because they may feel patronized due to the fact that you have been using small, simple words for the duration of the conversation. The listener can also become uninterested in a conversation if you are using technical and complicated language that they are not familiar with and because you are doing this they may not seen as engaged or interested in the conversation.

Another barrier of general communication would be ‘problems with technology’ technology is quite a big barrier because not everyone is familiar with different models of technological equipment especially those perhaps from an older generation because they would generally prefer a more hands on approach because that is how they have learned to give presentations and convey messages but if a person was giving a presentation to a classroom of children for example, a problem could occur with the projector or the computer may stop working when they have not memorized their presentation and as a result the barrier of technology has been placed on the presentation. Companies have recently become more invlolved in using technology for communicating with clients in different parts of the world by using things such as skype video conferencing and instant messaging to discuss things such as budgets and wages.

 

Interpersonal communication:

One barrier that is persistent with interpersonal communication is background noise, this is a barrier because when speaking to someone noise can build up in the background and this can distort the interpretation of the message that is being conveyed because the noise stops you from understanding the message, an example of disrupting background noise could be having loud music playing in the background and people are concentrating on the music instead of your speech

The next barrier associated with interpersonal communication is the use of negative emotions, this is a barrier because when people talk and use negative emotions, an example of a negative emotion would be humiliation when speaking to someone and showing humiliation people can start to lost respect for you and you could possibly lose whatever authority you had over the person and as a result the person may not want to listen to what you have to say and then they will not understand your message.

 

Written Communication:

Written communication is very important in everyday business and generally it is easy to understand and convey messages but it does have its own barriers, the first of which is if the document is not structured well, this is a barrier because if a document is not properly structured then you could misinterpret the message due to reading items in the wrong order so you could end up performing tasks in the wrong order or if the document doesn’t have a heading then you may not know what it is in reference to.

 

The next barrier of communication for written communication is when there are spelling and grammar errors/mistakes people can sometimes read the wrong words and then that will result in them possibly performing the wrong tasks or getting confused. Spelling and grammar errors can also tarnish the reputation and repectability of the company and it can affect the communication within the company between employees and could potentially confuse people.