Obstacles/Barriers in Communication
Barriers to Communication:
If the sender’s message does not reach the receiver as it is
meant to, then there must be some barrier or hindrance. What can it be? And how
to avoid such barriers?
Good organizers of communication need to anticipate the barriers
and remove them. The barriers range from a poor microphone to an emotional
attitude that rejects the message before it is received (e.g. a child unwilling
to heed to reason unless its demand is fulfilled first).
For convenience of analysis, we may classify the barriers into
five types:
I. Mechanical barriers
II. Physical barriers
III. Psychological barriers
IV. Semantic and language barriers
V. Status barriers
i. Mechanical barriers: Faulty mechanism:
A communication may not reach properly if the mechanism that
carries it breaks down. To take an extreme case, if the computer typing has
been done in devnagari, and while taking the printout the computer is in the
Roman mode, not a single letter would be understood.
Similarly, if the mirror image of a letter is sent by some
mechanical fault, it will be hard to decipher.
Some possible mechanical failures are:
(a) A weak microphone or poor sound spread (acoustics) of the
meeting place
(b) Defective telephone lines
(c) Electricity/computer breakdown
(d) Poor printing quality or paper spread of ink, overlap of
colours
(e) Atmospherics on radio or TV, especially in a cloudy weather
ii. Physical barriers: noise, space, time:
Sometimes background noise, whether in a face-to-face meeting or
at either end of the telephone, reduces the audibility of the spoken word.
Also, if the listener is too far from the speaker, he may not be able to hear
him, in which case distance is the barrier. Similarly, the time taken for the
message to reach its destination can become a barrier, e.g. a telegram
delivered too late.
iii. Psychological barriers:
These are numerous and require greater effort to overcome:
(a) A person of weak hearing or eyesight cannot always receive
the communication in full.
(b) The age of the listener puts its own limitations on his
ability to receive messages. One may be too young or too old to understand
certain things.
(c) A person’s educational level governs his understanding. Some
background knowledge is required to understand certain messages.
(d) Where they understand faster boys are more outdoors oriented
while girls tend to take a major interest in housework. A boy who is told to do
a “girl’s” job may put up a psychological barrier.
(e) A wandering mind cannot fully gather the inputs given to it.
While roving is a natural tendency of the mind and the attention span of a
listener is limited, there may be other causes of inattention too. These may be
visual or audio distractions – gaudy pictures or songs in the neighborhood.
(f) Ideological loyalties may form a barrier to communication.
One may have a political party membership, a philosophical principle (like
hedonism, i.e. devotion to sensory enjoyment), and a religious affiliation that
has already bound the way one thinks. Such a person may not be receptive to the
ideas counter to his ideology.
(g) Loyalty to a brand or an organisation is also a barrier. One
who is loyal to a certain brand may not be receptive to a rival product’s add.
One may not be receptive to the praises of an organisation other than one’s
own, a team other than one’s countries, and so on.
(h) Emotional states of a person can act as barriers. If someone
is in a fit of anger, he /she may not listen to reason. They may also find it
difficult to communicate soberly with a person who has not contributed to his
anger. There is a spillover effect – the emotion generated by one transaction
spilling over into an unrelated transaction.
(i) One’s prejudices act as a hindrance to reason. A prejudice
is a judgment formed without proper information. One may have a racial
prejudice, a caste prejudice and so on. This is the opposite of an open mind. A
liberal education is meant to remove irrational notions which stay on as
prejudices.
(j) Personality limitations, too, put a barrier. These are
similar to ideological barriers, as some personalities are naturally attracted
to certain ideologies. However, personality variations are far too numerous.
One’s aspirations, viewpoints, analyses make one open or closed
to certain messages. One bent on getting into a job for livelihood may not
listen to the advantages of entrepreneurship.
(k) Fixed images about other people stand as barriers to see
them in a new role. A comedian coming in as a hero of a film may not be
acceptable to an audience which sees him typed in comedy roles.
(l) Poor retention power is a barrier. If one fails to take
timely notes when instructions are given, hoping to remember them all, one has
perhaps given away a part of the communication.
iv. Semantic and language
barriers:
Semantics is the study of how words convey meanings. What
happens if the speaker/writer means one thing and the listener/reader takes it
in another meaning?
An advertiser offered to sell a “big, bad dog”. While the word
“bad” is meant to convey its attacking power to guard a house, some readers may
take it otherwise. The context changes the meaning of the word.
One has to ask, is the word conveyed in its proper context?
Words are indeed so tricky to use that one can hardly ever convey the same
thing to all receivers in given words.
The words generate different meanings in different minds,
according to their previous associations and language levels. Literary texts,
created by master writers and read by expert critics, are continually open to
reinterpretations. Some of this conflict with one another.
Yet in business life, dealing with matter-of-fact situations,
semantic barriers arise from the inability to read the receiver’s mind. If the
sender knows the receiver’s level of understanding, fine.
If not, there is a barrier. A good communicator takes the
trouble of removing all ambiguity and wrong coloring of words. As a receiver,
he tries to read the words and between the lines.
Semantic barriers arise when:
(a) The sender’s experience with words differs from the
receiver’s.
(b) Words from one environment are taken out and put into an
environment where they don’t fit.
(c) Opinions are given as facts. “XYZ bike is the most
reliable.”
(d) An abstract word is used (in order to be more general and
safer) when a concrete word is required. One may want to say that students of a
particular college are rowdy, but in order to avoid naming names, one may
abstract and generalize, and put the blame on college students as a whole.
Similarly, some young men may be impatient, but one might say “Youth is
impatient.”
(e) Complex phrases and long constructions are used. Also, when
idioms are meant to be understood in the idiomatic sense but are taken in the
literal sense. E.g., dot you i s and cross your t s. This may even generate
unintended humour.
As for language barriers (other than semantic barriers), we all
experience how different regional groups, sometimes due to their previous
language habits, distort English vowels.
Thus, “He is good at batting” may be changed to “He is good at
betting”. Lack of proper language skills may lead to wrong choice of words, or
of words with wrong associative values.
One hears people saying, “My boss’s behaviour is good,” whereas
the proper thing to say way would be, “My boss’s treatment of his juniors is
good.” But the rudeness may be unintended. Homonyms (words with the same sound)
cause difficulty in understanding: there and there, ones and once.
Speakers with different accents find it hard to understand each
other. The American accent is insufficiently understood in India while
Americans may have a hard time making sense of Indianised English.
Inadequate vocabulary in a new language is a handicap to
communication. Hence the praises of word power. Short of words, one may
straightaway use a native language word in a foreign language: “Today I met an
aamdaar “. What the speaker means is an MLA, but the listener may try to
associate the word with a mango and get nowhere.
Symbols (non-verbal) create the same problems as languages. The
swastik is revered by Hindus but the reverse swastik was a Nazi symbol.
Poor organisation of one’s speech and a harsh voice may also act
as barriers. In writing, long paragraphs are out of fashion. They are hard to
read. Clusters of big words put a barricade to speed reading.
v. Status barriers:
This again is a kind of psychological barrier, where the higher
or lower social status of the other party disables one from expressing one’s
meaning fully. A modest farmer, asked to express his problems to a high-ranking
official or politician, may feel nervous or ill at ease.
Status symbols (e.g. luxury of the surroundings) may halt
communication. A candidate from a modest background may be awestruck to see the
glitz and glamour of a multinational company where he has to appear for an
interview.
Cultural barriers are a special case of collective psychological
barriers. A culture brings its own habits, modes of dressing, greeting, eating,
food preferences etc. Most people have an element of xenophobia (fear or
aversion of foreigners).
Time magazine once commented sharply on American businessmen’s
need to allow for differences between American culture and Oriental culture.
Only then would they be able to do business with eastern countries.
This advice can, in fact, be universalized. Media power which
the English speaking countries enjoy tends to give them a false sense of
universal acceptability of their culture. In Indian business, it is a
grassroots reality that Indian words and Indianisms are freely used. Exposed to
native speakers of English, Indian businessmen are often at a loss.
Resistance to the written word exists as a barrier. The written
word demands a commitment. People prefer to listen (if possible in their
regional language) and act. Letters remain unreplied while personal visits or
telephone calls server the purpose.
How to remove communication barriers:
Resistance to the written word exists as a barrier. The written
word demands a commitment. People prefer to listen (if possible in their
regional language) and act. Letters remain unreplied while personal visits or
telephone calls serve the purpose.
A proper understanding of the nature of barriers helps us to
arrive at a solution. All the same, good communicators have to form a new set
of general habits and recognize the potential barriers in order to put their
meaning across.
(i) Good listening:
“Listening as a Tool of Communication.” In brief, deep and
comprehensive listening helps to overcome barriers. One has to listen to the
words as well as the tone. An overworked employee may say, “I’ll do it” with
just a little touch of despair. The boss needs to show understanding.
One may develop a better listening capacity by systematically
testing oneself on listening comprehension. TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign
Language) is meant to find out, among other things, how well one listens.
(ii) Practice in simplifying and clarifying one’s message:
Writers are known to rewrite their text several times to achieve
clarity, precision and beauty. Hence regular writing is advisable. The art of
writing, says an expert, is the art of rewriting.
(iii) Obtain feedback, analyze it and respond:
Advertisements are often tested for their pulling power. A
slight rearrangement of words or font or layout can make an ad more appealing.
(iv) Repetition:
Repetition of a message through multiple channels helps to
remove barriers which may exist at the first appearance of an idea. Thus one
removes the resistance to the new.
(v) Ambience:
Find the receiver in a receptive mood and ambience. If the
audience is, for instance, given more comfortable chairs, it may digest a
speech better.
(vi) Actions speak louder than words:
If the communicator’s sincerity is shown through his actions,
people go out to listen to him.
(vii) Cross-cultural get-togethers:
A systematic effort to bring together people of different
cultures goes to increase receptivity. Also, respect for their cultural icons
makes the message welcome.
(viii) Informality is useful:
If the rank and file in an organisation are in awe of the
superior (due to his position, education, dress, quality of visitors,
excellence in speech, etc.) such a manager may step out of his cabin and go out
to the juniors.
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