Communication is a process by which you convey your message to someone or a group of people.

And if the message is conveyed clearly and unambiguously, then it is known as effective communication. In effective communication, the message you had send would reach the receiver with very little distortion. However, a communication becomes successful only if the receiver understands what the sender is trying to convey. When your message is not clearly understood you should understand that you are facing a barrier to communication. Barriers to effective communication could cause roadblocks in your professional and personal life and it could be one of the major hurdles in achieving your professional goals. Barriers to Effective Communication An effective communication barrier is one of the problems faced by many organizations. Many social psychologists opine that there is 50% to 70% loss of meaning while conveying the messages from a sender to a receiver. They estimate there are four basic places where communication could be interpreted wrongly. A few barriers of effective communication in an organization are given below. Physical Barriers - One of the major barriers of communication in a workplace is the physical barrier. Physical barriers in an organization includes large working areas that are physically separated from others. Other distractions that could cause a physical barrier in an organization are the environment, background noise Language - Inability to converse in a language that is known by both the sender and receiver is the greatest barrier to effective communication. When a person uses inappropriate words while conversing or writing, it could lead to misunderstanding between the sender and a receiver. Emotions - Your emotions could be a barrier to communication if you are engrossed in your emotions for some reason. In such cases, you tend to have trouble listening to others or understanding the message conveyed to you. A few of the emotional interferences include hostility, anger, resentfulness and fear. Lack of Subject Knowledge - If a person who sends a message lacks subject knowledge then he may not be able to convey his message clearly. The receiver could misunderstand his message, and this could lead to a barrier to effective communication. Stress - One of the major communication barriers faced by employees in most of the organization is stress. When a person is under immense stress, he may find it difficult to understand the message, leading to communication distortion. At the time of stress, our psychological frame of mind depends on our beliefs, experiences, goals and values. Thus, we fail to realize the essence of communication. The above-mentioned barriers to effective communication are considered as filters of communications. You can overcome the barriers to communication through effective and active listening.

Case Studies: "Communication Gaps Galore" Dear all, Following are the two case studies that can be used for training on communication skills. Both the case studies have been developed from my personal experiences and these have not been copied or downloaded from any website. Though these case studies are not suitable for managerial level training, these can be used for lower level training. However, when it comes to development of communication attitude, both the case studies are good

for any level. For Trainers only: - You can share your case studies through this forum. If you are unable to make case studies, you can forward me the details of the incident, I will convert the incident into the case study. Warm regards, Dinesh V Divekar Freelance Soft Skill & Behavioural Trainer Bangalore - 560 094 + 91 9900155394 Case Study: The Logistic Company Most of the courier and cargo companies, when they send their total consignments (load in their language) to a particular station, they do it with advance intimation by way of sending E-mail (pre-alert message in their language). ABC Logistics was no exception to this procedure. Whenever they sent their load by evening flight to Mumbai, they sent prealert to Mumbai giving details of the load like flight number, total number of bags, total weight of the bags etc. Night-duty Airport Executive at Mumbai Airport use to retrieve the load and use to confirm the receipt of the load to the Bangalore office. The arrangement worked fine for months and even years. Airport Executive continued to get the pre-alert message and after retrieval of the load, he continued to confirm the receipt of the load. On one fine night, Satish who was on night-duty at Mumbai airport observed that neither any pre-alert has been received from Bangalore . Nor Bangalore office had sent any load to them. He tried calling Bangalore office. But it was well past midnight and there was no response from Bangalore office. Security guard on duty told to the Airport Executive that nobody is available in the Bangalore office and staff on duty had left already. Satish knew that generally Ravi works in the night time. He tried calling on Ravi s mobile number but it was switched off. Satish had no other option except calling Asst Manager Operations of Bangalore , Charles. Charles tried contacting Ravi but he observed same what Satish had observed, that Ravi s mobile was off. This was unique situation. He was concerned about what had happened. Charles tried calling other operations staffs to find out whether anybody knew home of Ravi . But none of them knew where Ravi s house was. Charles was disappointed. Though he had disturbed couple of staffs in the dead of the night, there was no much headway. Charles was on the horns of dilemma. Should I defer the matter for early morning or settle right away? After deliberating for couple of minutes, he chose latter. As a last resort, Charles called Hari, HR Executive. Charles explained

situation to him and told him to go to office and find out address of Ravi from the personal documents of Ravi . By the time it was 01:30 hours and Hari was aghast[1] to find out that he was told to go to office at dead of the night. Willy-nilly, Hari went to his office, pulled out personal documents of Ravi and noted his address. Later he confirmed the address to Charles. Charles had no option but to commute 15 KM in order to go to house of Ravi . He reached Ravi s home at 02:15 hours. For Ravi , it was a strange experience to find out that his manager was knocking his door at well past midnight. When questioned why he did not send the pre-alert, he just told that very simple, today there was excess booking by other logistic companies and there was no space, so cargo officials of all the airlines refused to accept our load. And since no load was connected, I did not send pre-alert as well. However, I have done booking for morning flight and load will be connected through morning flight. Charles was damn infuriated by his answer. But his fate had stored a little more frustration for him as while returning home from Ravi s home, night duty patrol cops caught for him driving his two-wheeler without driving license. *** Read the above case study carefully and find out the communication issues involved in it.

Case Study The Wet Floor Sushma works in Infosoft Solutions Pvt Ltd. She works there as Project Leader. Occasionally her job demands coming early for her duties or stay till late evening hours. Once she was handling 2 projects simultaneously and on one such day she had convened a meeting with her team members regarding project delivery. She had called her team members at 0800 hours. Sushma is a disciplinarian and generally she follows duty timings strictly. Discipline starts with me, was her firm principle. She had made a habit of coming 5 minutes early at least. However, on that day she could not make meeting time of 0800 hours and she was worried of her reputation could be at stake. Time was 0805 and she reached main gate of her company. Hurriedly she swiped her card and rushed towards board room. That time few housemen were doing cleaning. One of the housemen had spread soap solution on

the floor. Unaware of what is on the floor, she continued to rush to the board room. In hurry, Sushma slipped her foot. The floor was made of marbles and soap solution was sprinkled over it. The floor had become quite slippery. Sushma, could not control her balance on the slippery floor and fell down. Slippery floor dragged her couple of feet further. The impact was so strong that she wailed loudly. Her team members rushed to help her. Somehow she could get up with the help of her team members. Considering her wailing because of pain, she was taken to the hospital. In the hospital it was discovered that her hip bone was broken. Later she was immobile for about two months because of hip injury. Later in investigation, it was revealed that the houseman who was cleaning the floor had not put the display board Caution: Floor is Wet.