Barriers to Communication

Communicating Cross-Culturally and Related

Concepts
WEEK 4
Communications Skills – The
Importance of Removing Barriers
 Problems with communication can pop-up at every stage of
the communication process (which consists of the sender,
encoding, the channel, decoding, the receiver, feedback and
the context.) At each stage, there is the potential for
misunderstanding and confusion.
To be an effective communicator and to get your point across
without misunderstanding and confusion, your goal should
be
to lessen the frequency of problems at each stage of this
process, with clear, concise, accurate, well-planned
communications. We follow the process through below:
Source...
As the source of the message, you need to be clear about
why
and what you are communicating. You also need to be
confident that the information you're communicating is useful
and accurate.
 Message...
The message is the information you communicate.
Encoding...
This is the process of transferring the information into a form
that can be sent and correctly decoded at the other end. Your
success in encoding depends partly on your ability to convey
information clearly and simply, but also on your ability to
anticipate and eliminate sources of confusion (for example,
cultural issues, mistaken assumptions, and missing
information.) A key part of this is knowing your audience:
Failure to understand who you are communicating with will
result in delivering messages that are misunderstood.
 Channel...
Messages are conveyed through verbal (face-to-face
meetings, telephone and videoconferencing) and written
channels (letters, emails, memos and reports).
Different channels have different strengths and weaknesses.
For example, it's not particularly effective to give a long list of
directions verbally, while you'll quickly cause problems if you
give someone negative feedback using email.
Decoding...
Just as successful encoding is a skill, so is successful
decoding (involving, for example, taking the time to read a
message carefully, or listen actively to it.) Just as confusion
can arise from errors in encoding, it can also arise from
decoding errors. This is particularly the case if the decoder
doesn't have enough knowledge to understand the message.
 Receiver...
Your message is delivered to individual members of your
audience. No doubt, you have in mind the actions or
reactions
you hope your message will get from this audience. Keep in
mind, though, that each of these individuals enters into the
communication process with ideas and feelings that will
undoubtedly influence their understanding of your message,
and their response.To be a successful communicator, you
shouldconsider these before delivering your message, and act
appropriately.
Feedback...
Your audience will provide you with feedback, as verbal and
nonverbal reactions to your communicated message. Pay
close attention to this feedback, as it is the only thing that
can give you confidence that your audience has understood
your message. If you find that there has been a
misunderstanding, at least you have the opportunity to send
the message a second time.
 Context...
The situation in which your message is delivered is the context.
This may include the surrounding environment or broader
culture (corporate culture, international cultures, and so on).
Removing Barriers at All These Stages
To deliver your messages effectively, you must commit to
breaking down the barriers that exist within each of these stages
of the communication process.
Let’s begin with the message itself. If your message is too
lengthy, disorganized, or contains errors, you can expect the
message to be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Use of poor
verbal and body language can also confuse the message.
Barriers in context tend to stem from senders offering too much
information too fast. When in doubt here, less is oftentimes
more. It is best to be mindful of the demands on other people’s
time, especially in today’s ultra-busy society.
Once you understand this, you need to work to understand your
audience’s culture, making sure you can converse and deliver
your message to people of different backgrounds and cultures
within your own organization, in your country and even abroad.
 Most Common Barriers to Effective Communication
 Definition of Barriers
 Many companies develop difficulties within their organization due to
communication issues. There are five key barriers that can occur within a
company: language, cultural diversity, gender differences, status
differences and physical separation. These
 Barriers To Communication:
  Barriers to communication are specific items that can distort or prevent
communication within an organization. The ability for a company to
recognize the communication issues and come to a resolution can
drastically improve working conditions, sales and organizational culture.
Let's look at communication barriers through examples at Paint Your
Face Cosmetic Company. Paint Your Face Cosmetics is a makeup
company that sells products globally. They recently have had numerous
excellent ideas for new product development but, for some reason, have
been unsuccessful with bringing the final product to the marketplace.
 Some problems with issues in the departments being hidden and not resolved, troub
le within sales meetings, issues between office locations and difficulties with
language barriers. The CEO has a feeling that there are some serious
communication issues happening with the organization.
 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.