Barriers to Effective Communication

Barriers to effective communication can retard or distort the message and intention of the message being conveyed which may result in failure of the communication process or an effect that is not desirable. These include filtering, selective perception, information overload, emotions, language, silence, communication apprehension, gender differences and political correctness.

This also includes a lack of expressing “knowledge-appropriate” communication, which occurs when a person uses ambiguous or complex legal words, medical jargon, or descriptions of a situation or environment that is not understood by the recipient.

• Physical barriers: Physical barriers occur due to the nature of the environment. An example of this is the natural barrier which exists if staffs are located in different buildings or on different sites. Similarly, poor or outdated equipment, particularly the failure of management to introduce new technology, may also cause problems. Staff shortages are another factor which occasionally causes communication difficulties for an organization.
• System design: System design faults refer to problems with the structures or systems in place in an organization. Examples might include an organizational structure which is unclear and in turn makes it confusing to know whom to communicate with. Other examples could be inefficient or inappropriate information systems, a lack of supervision or training, and a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities which can lead to staff being uncertain about what is expected of them.
• Attitudinal barriers: Attitudinal barriers come about as a result of problems with staff in an organization. These may be brought about, for example, by such factors as poor management, lack of consultation with employees, personality conflicts which can result in people delaying or refusing to communicate, the personal attitudes of individual employees which may be due to lack of motivation or dissatisfaction at work, brought about by insufficient training to enable them to carry out particular tasks, or simply resistance to change due to entrenched attitudes and ideas.
• Defensiveness or premature assumptions: A defensive listener will be less able to “hear” what the speaker is saying. In some cases, instead of listening, a person is thinking about why an interaction is occurring or perhaps preparing a response to a message that he or she hasn’t heard. By making assumptions about the speaker and the reasons that a conversation is taking place, the listener keeps himself or herself from paying attention to the real message.
• Ambiguity of words/phrases: Words sounding the same but having different meaning can convey a different meaning altogether. Hence the communicator must ensure that the receiver receives the same meaning. It is better if such words are avoided by using alternatives whenever possible.
• A distracting environment: An environment that is crowded or noisy tends to be distracting, and this can prevent effective communication.
• Individual linguistic ability: The use of jargon, difficult or inappropriate words in communication can prevent the recipients from understanding the message. Poorly explained or misunderstood messages can also result in confusion. However, research in communication has shown that confusion can lend legitimacy to research when persuasion fails.
• The display of inappropriate body language or the misreading of body language: Body language helps us pick up visual clues from people’s reactions to what we are saying to them. A defensive, hostile, antagonistic, or fearful posture can create concerns on the part of the listener or the speaker and can therefore inhibit communication.
• Physiological barriers: These may result from individuals’ personal discomfort, caused—for example—by ill health, poor eyesight or hearing difficulties.
• Cultural differences: These may result from the cultural differences of communities around the world, within an individual country (tribal/regional differences, dialects etc.), between religious groups and in organizations or at an organizational level – where companies, teams and units may have different expectations, norms and idiolects. Families and family groups may also experience the effect of cultural barriers to communication within and between different family members or groups. For example: words, colors and symbols have different meanings in different cultures. In most parts of the world, nodding your head means agreement, shaking your head means no, except in some parts of the world.