Barriers to Communication

Barriers
• Caused by noise

• Brief overview of barriers

– External /Physical
– Semantic
– Socio-psychological
– Organisational
– Inter- cultural

• Overcoming barriers
 External or Physical
• Defects in medium

• Noise in environment

• Information overload
 Semantic
• Arising from different meanings of words
• People interpret words and information
differently

• Language is also a tricky tool

– Similar sounding words
– Different meanings to same word (spring, charge,
stall, etc)
– Vagueness of adjectives/ adverbs
– Meanings created by voice modulation
 Socio-psychological
• Emotions that lie in ourselves

• What we learn from and how our thinking is

influenced by our sociological background

• Mind set arising from educational, professional

training and occupation
• Self-centred attitudes
• Group identification
• Self-image
• Selective perception
• Filtering
• Status block
• Closed mind
• Poor communication skills
• State of health
 Organisational
• System may hold up movement of papers

• Loss or distortion of information as it moves up

or down hierarchy (editing)

• Over-dependence on written communication

• Deliberate withholding of information (rivalry)

 Inter-cultural
• Most obvious differences of culture:
– Language
– Appearance
– Values and norms of behaviour
– Social relationships
– Body language
– Perception and understanding of meanings
– Concept of time
– Concept of space
– Thinking process
 Overcoming barriers
• Individual efforts
– Listening skills
– Feedback skills

• Organisational efforts
– Maintaining media
– Communication policy
– Training