What are the barriers to communication?

[bijumk]

Explain the barriers of communication.

[nbm]

The communication problems or barriers highlighted by such surveys can be classified as:
(1) Mechanical problems or barriers;
(2) Organisational problems or barriers; and
(3) Personal problems or barriers.
(1) Mechanical problems or barriers
Mechanical barriers may be due to distortion, filtering and overloading of communications.
(1) Distortion—It may be due to noise in transmission, or because the communicator does not use the right words to give meaning and precision to his ideas. Noise in transmission is caused because of mechanical defects. Use of inadequate or imprecise words by the communicator makes it difficult for the communicatee to understand the message. Both the problems can be easily overcome the first by repairing the defect, and the second by an extra effort on the part of the communicator to improve his vocabulary so as to be able to convey his messages in the words easily understood by the communicatee.
Filtering—It is due to distance between the communicator and the communicatee. As a message passes through different points in the communication channel, it may be altered or twisted by the persons in between. Filtering usually occurs in the case of upward communications, since the persons, through whom the communication passes may stand to benefit by altering the message so as to show a better performance to their superiors by overstating the good points or suppressing the inconvenient ones.
Overloading—It is caused by overworking of the communication channels due to increase in the number of messages to be cleared. Where the problem cannot be solved by introduction of additional channels, the manager should ensure that urgent and important messages are given preference over routing types of communications.
(2) Organisational problems or barriers
Ineffective communication may also be due to organisational problems such as faulty, designing of the arrangements for performance of various activities, prescribing of inadequate or wrong policies, procedures, rules, etc.
(i) Organisational policies—Lack of proper and effective organisational policies in regard to communication is bound to lead to several problems. Hence, there should not only be communication policy adequate to meet the requirements of the enterprise, but as far as possible it should be staled in writing.
(ii) Organisational rules and procedures—Existence of rigid or faulty rules and procedures as to communication may also adversely affect the communication flow. For example, the rule that all messages should be routed through a long-winded channel may be a great hindrance where a message is very urgent requiring prompt response. A case in point is public sector undertakings where it takes long time to communicate even important messages to the persons concerned, because these have to pass through several points.
(iii) Organisational facilities—For effective and easy communication, organisational facilities, such as, meetings, conferences, complaint or suggestion boxes, social and cultural gathering, etc. have an important role. Communication flow will be greatly delayed if these methods are not effectively used.
(iv) Status patterns—Placing of persons in superior-subordinate relationships in the organisation structure also creates communication problems. As the hierarchical distance between individuals grows, communication flow between them tends to be less and less.
(3) Personal problems or barriers
Sometimes the failure in communication is due to personal problems of the person to whom the communication is being addressed ie, the communicatee. These may be as follows:
1. Lack of attention or interest—If the communicatee is not attentive to the message, he will not be able to grasp its meaning and act accordingly, thus defeating the purpose of the communication lack of proper attention or interest on his part may be due to various reasons, such as being engrossed in his own thoughts, difficulty in understanding the words and phrases used in the message.
2. Hasty conclusions—The communicatee may be by nature person in a hurry, such that without going through the message carefully, he may jump to hasty conclusions according to his opinion and belief.
3. Lack of confidence in the communicator-Sometimes the communicatee believes that communicator is not adequately competent or not well disposed towards the communicatee's interests, he may consider the message with doubt. This defeats the purpose of communication.
4. Improper state of mind—At times the communicatee may not be in a proper state of mind to receive the message correctly. If he is mentally upset, it is likely to affect the communication of the message.
5. Love for status quo —If the communication tends to disturb the existing scheme of things, it may create a understanding and resistance.