Introduction
Barriers in communication are obstacles in a workplace
that prevents effective exchange
of ideas
or thoughts. Such barriers include: status differences, gender differences, cultural differences, prejudices,
and the organizational environment.
For efficient, healthy workplaces, all employees must
understand the barriers to effective communication so they may be overcome.
There are various examples of communication barriers. These are anything that may hinder communication. They include different languages, age, and in some cases social status.
General
- Language
Speaking in different languages can often lead to barriers in communication because people simply cannot understand one another. At the same time, there can be barriers when people speak the same language but come from different cultures and educational backgrounds.
To communicate effectively, an individual must ensure he/she is speaking clearly and using the most general concepts available in order to get his message across. This is where it becomes vital to ask questions and confirm others understand what you are trying to communicate.
- Cultural Differences
Effective communication is more than organizing
words into sentences. Bluntness, tone, volume, body language, facial
expressions, etc. all send signals as to one's intent and mood. Different
cultures have different meanings in this regard which can lead to
mis-communications.
Interpersonal
- Distractions
Distractions it
can be another barrier of communication for people. People that are distracted
can intake some information and rest of it will just in one ear and out the
other. When a person is talking and cup of coffee will be spilling then he/her
will get distracted and they can even get lost in what hey ware talking about.
To communicate effectively, you must be fully attentive. Anything that distracts your attention serves as a barrier to effective communication. These distractions can come in many forms. At times the distractions are physical, such as noise that makes the otherwise simple task of hearing the message difficult. At other times, the distraction can be internal.
When you're bored
or uninterested in the conversation that is being said you start to fidget
or start tapping on the table what could be annoying for people and it will distract
them. Also for example when you are looking to ask something teacher and some
one will start to shuffling there paper person that is about to speak can get
distracted so much that he/her can fagot what they ware looking to ask. If you
do those thinks when your board those type of distractions can be over by
taking you thru appropriate training in how to give presentations. The good
example would be to prepare some type of presentation and show it to you friend
or to some one that can give you help with it, tell you what you did wrong,
give you feedback and advices what you would need to do to make it good next
time.
- Background Noise
Background noise
should not be
underestimated, even a slight continuous noise, such as the humming of an air
conditioning unit or the ticking of a clock, can distract an audience.
Background noise in the homes or businesses of your customers can be
a barrier to communication.
Noise can be a
barrier to communication from your end as well. Many customer contact centres
are partitioned to help cut down on the noise created by ringing phones and
agents talking. The more modern contact centres are architecturally designed to
reduce noise levels. If there is a
lot of background noise than the receiver may not hear what the sender is
saying. Different types of background noise, such as the running of a printer
or coffee machines can block out what a speaker is saying, by diverting the
group’s attention and affecting the in-take of information from the
group. Many
times it is difficult to have a meaningful conversation due to a noisy location.
Noise comes in many forms: from people, equipment, street noise and more.
Examples of background noise:
- Noises from outside the building – animals, cars etc.
- Noise from meeting going on from within the office.
- Noise from construction work in the building.
- Noise from IT equipment – printers etc.
- Other people using the telephone.
- Noise from air conditioning units.
- Loud voices in the office.
- Telephone ringing.
Written
- Spelling and grammar
If words are not spelt correctly the reader cannot read the message or else cannot understand the message. Grammar errors can also cause problems with reading messages. Spelling and grammar errors expose an organisation negatively – unprofessional etc.
Spelling can also act as a barrier to communication. For example, if you were sent a document via email, a letter or any piece of text which had lots of spelling mistakes, it would be very hard to understand. You wouldn’t be able to understand what the text was telling you as the spelling mistakes would make it hard to make out what certain words meant.
If you have poor spelling this can be a major impact on the barriers to effective communication. The poor spelling means wrong spelling of words. The poor spelling works by when you have lots of spelling mistakes on a letter you sending to a company and message you sending to the company. This can cause unprofessional image to the reader and the message would be difficult for the reader to understand. So this is why poor spelling can be potential barriers to effective communication.
- Proofreading
This barrier to effective communication can occur when someone has poor proofreading skills, if someone makes an error in their proofreading for someone else’s work, the person may misunderstand what is meant by the proofreading symbol, this will result in a barrier to communication.
An example of proofreading would be if you gave someone your work to be proofread and they make an error while reading it. This can result in you failing or having to redo the piece of work.
In order to overcome this make sure the person knows hot to proofread and mark, they can find websites on the internet that will show them how to proofread.
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