‘I talk to the trees,

but they don’t listen to me,

I talk to the birds,
but they don’t understand me.’

What is the
problem ????????????????
 Breaking barriers:

communication in practice
 Barrier to communication?
Identifying underlying causes
• Psychological factors
  such as people's state of mind.
• Physical barriers
due to the nature of the environment.
for example,
• the natural barrier which exists,
• if staff are located in different buildings
or on different sites poor
• outdated equipment,
• Staff shortages,
• Whilst distractions like background noise,
poor lighting or an environment which is
too hot or cold.
System design  
 problems with the structures or systems in place in an
organization.
 Examples
• an organizational structure which is unclear and
therefore makes it confusing to know who to
communicate with.
• inefficient or inappropriate information systems, a lack of
supervision or training,
• a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities which can
lead to staff being uncertain about what is expected of
them.
Attitudinal barriers
a result of problems with staff in an organization.
for example,
• 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
 Presentation of information  
•  is also important to aid understanding
More factors may be :

• A weak delivery
• The use of the wrong medium to deliver
the communication
• A mixed message
• The message is delivered to the wrong
audience
Cultural Barriers:
• Cultural difference, different norms, values
or behavior.
Ethical barriers
• Caused by ethical constraints exerted by
the organization itself.
 Barriers to good communication
(Cont)

• Different status of the sender and the

receiver

• Use of jargon - employees who are "specialists"

may fall for the trap of using specialist language
for a non-specialist audience
(e.g. the IT technician who cannot tries to explain
how users should log onto a network, in
language that sounds foreign to most users of
the network)
• Selective reporting - where the reporter
gives the recipient incorrect or incomplete
information
• Poor timing - information that is not
immediately relevant (e.g. notice of some
deadline that seems a long way off) is not
always auctioned straightaway
• Conflict - where the communicator and
recipient are in conflict; information tends
to be ignored or distorted
 Physiological & Neurological
factors

• Researchers suggests that human ability

to communicate with one another is
influenced by 3 inter-related mechanisms:
• Alertness & attention:
affecting what data our senses manage to pick
up;

• Perception:
resulting in different interpretations of the same
sensory data;

• Memory:
affecting the messages we retain & those we can
recall;
 Human cognition:
four linked mechanisms

Alertness

Memory (selective)
attention

Perception
 Overcoming the barriers
• Taking the receiver more seriously:
• Thinking more clearly about the message
• Delivering messages skillfully:
Focusing on the receiver
Using multiple channels & encoding
Securing appropriate feedback.
 Conclusion
• The barriers to effective business
communication are many, but with care
and attention the majority of them can be
overcome.