Barriers to communication and steps to overcome them

  

Date Posted: 4/19/2012 8:31:49 AM

Posted By: sashoo  Membership Level: Silver  Total Points: 382

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BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION
The communication barriers may be classified as follows:
1. Mechanical Barriers.
2. Organizational Barriers.
3. Personal Barriers.

1. MECHANICAL BARRIERS
• Distortion:
This may be due to noise in transmission or because the communicator does not use the right words to give meaning and precision to these ideas.
• Filtering:
This is due to the distance between the communicator and the recipient. Message passes through different points in the communication channel and may be altered or twisted by the person in between.
• Overloading:
This is caused by overworking of the communication channel due to increase in the number of messages to be cleared.

2. ORGANIZATIONAL BARRIERS
• Organizational policies:
This involves lack of proper and effective organizational policies in regard to the communication. It is bound to lead to several problems.
• Organizational rules and procedures:
Existence of rigid or faulty rules and procedures to communication may adversely affect the communication flow. The rules should be flexible or communication-friendly.
• Organizational Facilities:
For effective and easy communication, organizational facilities such as meetings, conferences, suggestion boxes, social and cultural gatherings, etc. should be put in place. This is because they have a significant role in communication. Lack of such facilities may affect communication.
• Status patterns:
This means placing of persons in superior subordinate relationships in the organizational structure.

3. PERSONAL BARRIERS
• Lack of attention or interest.
• Hasty conclusions.
• Lack of confidence in the person who is communicating.
• Improper state of mind.
• Love for status quo i.e. some people believe that communication can disturb the existing scheme of thinking.

STEPS TO OVERCOME THESE BARRIERS
• Proper placement of officials.
• Simple and clear language should be used.
• Proper orientation should be practiced to enable employees well understand the objectives, policies and operations of the enterprise.
• Completeness of message.
• Cordial relationship and atmosphere.
• There must be feedback provisions. This will enable communication to be a two way process in which employees are given an opportunity to make suggestions and even criticize.
• Informal communication should be optimum to enable employees to communicate freely.
• Regulating the flow of

communication should be evident to ensure an optimum flow of information to managers and subordinates.

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