PREFACE 1. Barriers of communication
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* Defining barriers of communication * Types of barriers * Physical or environmental barriers * Physiological or biological barriers * Semantic or language barriers * Personal barriers * Emotional or perceptional barriers * Socio-psychological barriers *Cultural barriers *Organizational barriers
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DEFINING BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION For any kind of communication to be successful, it is essential that the receiving attributes the same meaning to the message as intended by the sender of the message. But all acts of communication are not perfect or successful. At times, some meaning is lost as the message encounters various barriers along its passage from the sender to the receiver. Such barriers may arise at any of the stages through which a message passes during the process of communication. This variation in meaning is also called miscommunication.
Some of the common problems that lead to the failure of communication are noise, cultural differences, and complexity of subject matter, personal biases, semantic problems, socio -psychological barriers, filtering, information overload, poor retention, poor listening, goal conflicts, slanting and inferring. Barriers to communication can be classified as follows on the basis of the stage of the communication process during which the problem/s arise:
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Sender-oriented barriers, which include lack of planning, lack of clarity about the purpose of communication, improper choice of words resulting in a badly encoded message, difference in perception, wrong choice of the
Channel, unjustified presumptions, etc. Example: - you have been working in the fast Food joint for the last five years. You are pretty comfortable with the working of the organization. All your friends have moved to other organization and you are oldest in the organization. The young batch of recruits has a lot of problems with the functioning of the joint and the group and the oldest member of organization to represent the cause of the old and fresh recruits. This invitation has come to you suddenly and you are not prepared for it. The manager asks you to sit and talk about the problems experienced by the younger group and asks you whether similar problems were faced by the senior members who have already left.
In this particular example, you are caught Off-guard. As an insider of the group you are not sure of how much information can actually be divested. In the process of trying to figure out how much information must be revealed you are unable to bring clarity in your message. a. Receiver-oriented barriers, like poor listening, lack of interest, difference in perception and biased attitude.
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Example: - you have recently joined an organization and your team leader calls all the team players and informs that the organization is going through a very bad patch. Financial resources are restricted and any innovations in terms of projects have to be curtailed as it will indicate an increase in costs.
Two days later, the same team leader calls all of you and tells you that a new project has been assigned to the group. It may need experimentation before it is finalized and work can actually begin. The meeting closes with the following statement: “Do not worry about the costs. We are working in a rich company which always gives preference to quality over costs.” Presentation of conflicting information creates doubts in your mind: “Have I joined a rich company which gives preference to quality or have I joined an ordinary company in which costs determine the quality?” the mind oscillates between conflicting information provided by the same sender. Result-poor receptivity of the message.
b. Channel –oriented barriers, such as noise, wrong selection of medium, technical defects in the address system or the medium of communication chosen by the sender and time and distance.
We may define communication as a psycho-semantic process. Therefore, the barriers that affect the effectiveness of communication are mostly of a social-psychological-linguistic nature. These factors may act upon any or all of the elements in the process of communication,
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that is, the sender or the receiver or the channel. Further, a common barrier for both the sender and the receiver can be the
absence of a common frame of reference,
Which often leads to the breakdown of communication in a specific situation?
A common frame of reference is the context in which communication takes place. A well-defined context helps the sender and the receiver to comprehend the content of the message in a similar way, with regard to its implications and meaning. Many of the barriers listed above are easy to understand. But a few of them may require a detailed explanation.
Types of Barriers
Barriers to communication can be classified into the following broad categories:
Physical or environmental barriers.
Physiological or biological barriers
Semantic or language barriers
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Personal barriers
Emotional or perceptional barriers
Socio-psychological barriers.
Cultural barriers
Organizational barriers
Physical or environmental barriers
Physical barriers are those barriers which are caused due to some technical defects in the media used for communication and/or due to certain disturbances in the surrounding environment.
Often, the term noise is used as a blanket term to refer to physical barriers in general. But noise, in its literal sense, is also one of the factors that give rise to physical barriers during the process of communication.
Besides noise, wrong selection of medium, lack of acoustics, poor lighting, frequent movements of hands, fiddling with a pen, or even serving of tea during an important conversation are also responsible for creating physical barriers in the communication process.
Noise
Noise is the first major barrier to communication. Communication is distorted by noise that occurs at the transmission level.
The meaning attributed to the word ‘noise’ in the field of communications is derived from its definition in physics. In physics, noise refers to ‘a disturbance, especially a random and persistent disturbance, which obscures or reduces the clarity of a signal.’
One of the modern-day connotations of the word ‘noise’ apparent in its use in the field of computer science is ‘irrelevant or meaningless data’.
For example, the noise of traffic around a school obstructs the smooth flow of information between the teacher and the students. It makes
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oral communication difficult. Similarly, poor signal or static while talking over the cell phone or using the public address system or watching TV also distorts the sound signals and disrupts communication. Bad weather conditions may also sometimes interfere with the transmission of signals and may lead to breakdown of communication channels.
As discussed above, noise is not only the disruption of sound signals, but it also includes all the barriers that may arise at any of the various stages of communication. In a broad sense, it denotes semantic barriers, perceptional barriers as well as psychological barriers.
Time and distance
Time and distance may also obstruct the smooth flow of information. Today, because of technological advancements, we have means of communication available, and this in turn has made the world a smaller place. But at times, these means of communication may not be easily accessible because of unavailability or due to technical/technological problems. This may lead not only to a physical but also a communication gap between the transmitter and the receiver.
Time differences between two different countries may affect communication between the people living in them. Even the people working in different shifts in the same organization may face problems in communicating effectively.
Improper seating arrangement in a classroom or in a conference hall may also act as a barrier to effective communication as it is difficult to maintain eye contact with one’s audience.
Thus, communication can be successful only when the communicators manage to overcome the barriers by minimizing the obstacles that crop up due to spatial and temporal factors.
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C. Wrong choice of medium
This cans also a barrier to effective communication. For example, if an expert uses charts or graphs or Power Point presentations to orient uneducated factory workers or volunteers to a new method or working, they are bound to be ill-equipped to get any information or directions from such sophisticated presentations.
Surroundings
Adverse weather conditions affect not only the means of communication, but
Also have an impact on the sender and the receiver of the message. When two people have to communicate with each other in extreme weather conditions, whether too hot or too cold, their surroundings do 8
have a direct effect on the effectiveness of the exchange that place between them.
Thus, environmental factors determine people’s mood and also
influence their mental agility and thereby their capacity to communicate effectively. Extreme heat and humidity make people either hyper or listless and thus cause immense stress, which I turn, affects clear thinking and the attitude of the communicator, whereas extreme cold weather induces laziness and also impedes the ability to think clearly and respond sharply, thereby causing communication failure.
Physiological or biological barriers
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Physiological barriers are related to a person’s health and fitness. These may arise due to disabilities that may affect the physical capability of the sender or the receiver, for example poor eyesight, deafness and uncontrolled body movements.
Physical defects in one’s body may also disrupt communication. While communicating, a person uses his/her:
Vocal (speech) organs to produce sound/speech.
Hand and fingers to write
Ears to take in the spoken words eyes to absorb the written words
Proper functioning of these body organs is necessary for effective
communication to take place. In case of any defect in any of these organs, the successful completion of communication will be difficult to accomplish. *speaking can be adversely affected by stammering, fumbling, utterance of improper sounds due to defective vocal organ/s, etc. *listening can be rendered ineffective as a result of defective hearing. Deafness _ total or partial_ obstructs the absorption of sound signals. This leads to information loss.
*writing can fail to convey the message successfully because of
illegible handwriting due to hand injury, excessive trembling of the hand or fingers, numbness, etc.
*reading can be affected due to poor eyesight. Defective vision
impedes the reading ability of the receiver. Words may appear hazy, broken overlapping, etc. to the receiver’s eye.
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To overcome such barriers one must avail oneself of the necessary medical treatment (for defects in the body organs), therapy (to improve speech) or corrective aids (like hearing aids and spectacles).
Semantic or language barriers
Semantics is the systematic study of meanings in a language.
Thus, semantic barriers are barriers related to language. Such barriers are problems that arise during the process of encoding and/ or decoding the message into words and ideas respectively.
Both oral and written communication is based on words/symbols
which are ambiguous in nature. Words/symbols may be used in several ways and may have several meanings. Unless the receiver knows the context, he/she may interpret the words/symbols according to his/her own level of understanding and may, thus, misinterpret the message. The most common semantic barriers are discussed below.
Misinterpretation of words
Semantic problems often arise because of the gap between the
meanings as intended by the sender ad as understood by the receiver. This happens when the receiver does not assign the same meaning to the word/symbol as the transmitter intended.
Words are capable of expressing a variety of meanings depending
upon their usage, that is, in the context in which they are used. The association between the word/symbol and the meaning assigned to it is of an arbitrary nature.
For example, the word ‘Yellow’ when used as an adjective can
have multiple connotations depending upon its usage. Words have two levels of meaning literal (descriptive) and metaphorical (qualitative). 11
‘Yellow’, besides being a primary color, also stands for ‘freshness’, ‘beauty’, ‘sickness’, ‘decay’, etc. hence, the receiver is free to interpret it in any of these ways, based on his/her own imagination and experience.
But for communication to be perfect, it is essential that the
receiver assigns to it the same meaning which the sender had n his/her mind while encoding the message. Therefore, there is always a possibility of misinterpretation of the messages. Mostly, such problems arise when the sender does not use simple and clear words that can convey the exact meaning to the receiver.
Use of technical language
Technical or specialized language, which is used by people or
professionals who work in the same field, is known as jargon. Such technical language can be a barrier to communication if the receiver of the message is not familiar with it. For example, in computer jargon, ‘to burn a CD’ means ‘to copy data on a CD’. To a layman, the word ‘burn’ may have a very different meaning.
Ambiguity
Ambiguity arises when the ender and the receiver of the message
attribute different meanings to the same words or use different words to convey the same meaning. Sometimes, wrong and speculative assumptions also lead to ambiguity. A sender often assumes that his audience would perceive the situation as he/she does or have the same opinion about an issue or understand the message as he/she understands it, and so on. All such assumptions may turn out to be wrong and cause communication failure.
Personal barriers
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Communication is interpersonal in nature. Thus, there are certain
barriers that are directly linked to the people involved in the communication process, that is the sender and the receiver, which influence the accurate transfer of the message. These are called personal barriers.
Personal barriers have to do with age, education, interests and
needs or intentions that differ from person to person.
When one communicates, one addresses an audience that may
belong to different age groups. With age, one’s choices, preferences and interests undergo enormous changes. So this factor has to be taken into consideration while communicating in order to check the possibility of communication failure.
Difference in education is another important factor. It determines
the sender’s ability to think, compose an intelligible message and convey is successfully. On the other hand, it also influences the receiver’s capability to read/listen, and to understand and respond to the message that he/she receives. Thus, difference in education can hamper the successful encoding and/or decoding of the message, if proper care is not taken by the sender and/or the receiver.
In any business organization, the attitude of the superiors and the
subordinates plays a vital role in determining the success of communication. If the superiors have a hostile attitude then there are chances that they may filter information or manipulate messages, sometimes intentionally, in order to achieve certain selfish motives.
Sometimes superiors may not be open to suggestions and
feedback as they presume that their subordinates are not capable of advising them. Due to this, the downward flow of information within
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the organization may be badly affected, which in turn leads to poor performance.
Besides, superiors may exercise their authority by insisting that
their subordinates approach them only through proper formal channels of communication. If, under any circumstances, subordinates try to communicate to superiors directly, then they may take offence as they perceive such an attempt as a challenge to their position of power. Such an attitude thus becomes a barrier to effective communication.
On the other hand, there are certain factors that influence the
participation of subordinates in upward communicate openly and comfortably with superiors.
If they feel that some information may, in some way, harm their
prospects/ interests in the organization, then they prefer to conceal such information. In case, that is not possible, then they filter the information so that they cannot be held responsible for the same.
Moreover, when superiors do not support the active involvement
of subordinates in the functioning of the organization by encouraging them to share their ideas and to give suggestions that would contribute to the success of the organization, subordinates become indifferent, and this creates a barrier to upward communication. If subordinates feel that their ideas and suggestions are of no value to their superiors, then they do not feel motivated to express them.
Therefore, on the basis of the above discussion, we may conclude
that personal barriers have their origin in the attitudes of the sender as well as the receiver. Personal barriers often lead to distortion, filtering, and omission of information and thus have an adverse effect on the fidelity of communication.
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Emotional or perceptional barriers
Emotional or perceptional barriers are closely associated with
personal barriers. Personal barriers arise from motives and attitudes (as seen above), whereas emotional or perceptional barriers have an added dimension that includes sentiments and emotions.
If the receiver does not evaluate the information received with an
open mind, that is, objectively, his/her judgment/evaluation would be colored by biases and/or emotions, thus inducing him/her to read too much into a message. This would interfere with the exact transfer of information and cause misinterpretation.
Such a barrier may also emerge at the time of encoding the
message. Over enthusiasm on the part of the sender may lead him/her to invest the message with meaning/s which he/she may actually not have intended to.
Too much aggression or passivity while communicating on the
part of either the sender or the receiver also has an adverse effect on the success of communication. Also, too much of emotion clouds reason and sometimes, the communicator, blinded by his/her own sentiments, makes impulsive judgments or illogical decisions. This also results in the breakdown of communication.
Indolence, apathy, or the tendency to procrastinate, either on the
part of the sender or the receiver, also leads to withholding of important information, thus creating a barrier. Extreme emotions like euphoria, excitement, anger, stress and depression also get in the way of effective communication. All these factors may create biases in the mind of the sender or the receiver.
Therefore, the sender and the receiver may encode and decode
the message respectively as per their own perceptions, backgrounds,
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needs, experiences, etc. this leads to a distinct king of exchange of ideas and feedback as well. This is also one kind of filtering that takes place during the communication process.
Socio-Psychological barriers
Socio-Psychological barriers can also be considered as one of the
offshoots of personal barriers, and is similar to perceptional barriers. We need to study it as a subcategory of personal barriers because a person’s attitude is shaped not only by his/her instincts and emotions, but also by his/her approach towards and interaction with the people around him/her, and hence the need for this fine distinction between the personal, the perceptional and the socio-psychological barriers.
Status consciousness
To begin with, the consciousness of one’s position in an
organization has an effect on the two-way of communication. A vertical channel of communication is present in every organization, but its efficacy is heavily influenced by the relationship between the superiors and the subordinates. Though many organizations are now becoming accustomed to the open door policy, the psychological distance between the superiors and the subordinates still prevails. Status consciousness is thus one of the major barriers to successful communication.
Difference in perception
In a communication situation, the communicators have to deal
with two aspects of the reality-the one as they see it and the other as they perceive it. The mind filters the message, that is, the
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worlds/symbols/signs, and assigns meaning to them, According to individual perception.
Each individual has his/her own distinctive filter, formed by
his/her experiences, emotional make-up, knowledge, and mindset that she /he has attained over a period of time. Because of this difference in perceptions, different individuals respond to the same word/symbol/sign based on their own understanding of the situation and assign meaning to it on the basis of their unique filter.
At times, this difference in perception causes a communication
gap, or a distortion, in the message. In face-to-face communication, this gap can be easily eliminated as there is immediate feedback. But in written communication, the semantic gap between the intended meaning and the interpreted meaning remains unidentified, as the feedback is delayed ors sometimes there is no feedback at all.
Prejudices
People with deeply ingrained prejudices are very difficult to
communicate with. They are not responsive to discussion or to new ideas, information, viewpoints and opinions. They have a closed mind and tend to react antagonistically, thus ruling out all possibilities of communication. An unreceptive mind can, hence, be a great barrier to communication. To overcome this barrier, one should be receptive to new ideas and should learn to listen with consideration and an open mind.
Halo/Horn effect
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Sometimes the listener may be too much in awe of or may
completely distrust a speaker. In both these situations, the chances of success of communication are very less.
Information overload
Furthermore, information overload leads to poor retention and
causes information loss. So whenever here is some important information to be conveyed, the communicators should use the written channel of communication.
On the basis of the above discussion, we may thus conclude that
socio-psychological factors do have a profound impact on the effectiveness of communication.
Cultural barriers
Culture is ‘the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns,
arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and 18
thought. Culture is learned and shared within social groups and is transmitted by non-genetic means. (American Heritage Dictionary, 2005)
From this definition, we can infer that culture is the sum total of
ideas, customs, arts, rituals, skills, etc. of a group of people. It is handed down from generation to generation in the form of conventions, traditions, rules, codes of conduct, etc. to put it simply, culture is ‘the shared ways in which groups of people understand and interpret the world’. (Trompenaars, f. 1994. Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural diversity in Business. Chicago: Irwin.).
Each group, categorized on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, race,
religion, etc., has its own distinctive culture. Thus, there are varied subcultures that coexist within a major culture. Such immense cultural diversity plays a very crucial role in communication and may therefore create barriers to effective communication.
Cultural differences give rise to a great deal of complexity in the
encoding and the decoding of messages not only because of the difference in languages, but also because of a large number of culturespecific assumptions at work in the minds of the sender as well as the receiver.
People belonging to different cultures may attach different
meanings to words, symbols, gestures and behavior. They may perceive each other’s social values, body language, attitude to space distancing and time, social behavior and manners, etc., that is, the entire culture in general, very differently depending upon their own standards, attitudes, customs, prejudices, opinions, behavior norms, etc., that is, their own distinct culture.
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Thus, cultural barriers arise when people belonging to different
cultures insist on preserving their cultural identities, and at times, judge other cultures as inferior to their own. (For a detailed discussion on the various elements that can create cultural barriers, refer to chapter6, titled ‘Intercultural Communication’.)
Organizational barriers
Organizational structure greatly influences the flow of information
within an organization. Some major organizational barriers are discussed below:
There may be goal conflicts within an organization between the
superiors and the subordinates, among people working in the different departments, among working in the different departments, among the colleagues, etc. this may create a hostile atmosphere within the organization and can colleagues, etc. this may create a hostile atmosphere within the organization and can lead to serious communication breakdown.
Organizational policies
These are also to a great extent responsible for determining the
kind of rapport that people working in the same organization share with each other. If the organizational policy is such that it restricts the 20
free flow of information in all direction (refer to chapter 7, titled ‘Formal and informal Networks of communication’), then communication will not be successful.
Physical barriers: sound, sight, size light, location, distance, time,
surroundings, environment, infrastructural facilities, etc.
Physiological barriers:
*speaking- stammering, fumbling, utterance of improper sounds
due to defect in speech, etc.
*listening – hearing impairment, deafness, etc.
*writing- illegible handwriting due to uncontrolled hand
movements like trembling numbness, etc.
*Reading- difficulty in reading due to poor eyesight, perceiving
the written words as hazy, unclear and overlapping, etc.
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