Barriers to Communication

BARRIERS
• Sender-oriented
• Receiver-oriented

Sender oriented barriers:
It can be either voluntary or involuntary. At any cost, efforts should be made on the part of the sender to identify and remove them. Some of the barriers that are sender oriented are:
? Badly expressed message: concrete ideas and well structures message
? Loss in transmission: correct choice of medium or channel
? Semantic problem: simple words and accurate understanding of intension
? Over/under communication: quantum of information should be right
? ‘I’ Attitude: avoid I attitude
? Prejudices: mind free of bias

Rules to overcome the sender oriented barriers:
? Plan and clarify ideas
? Create a climate of trust and confidence
? Time your mind carefully
? Reinforce words with action
? Communicate efficiently

Receiver-oriented barriers:
? Poor retention: jot down points
? Inattentive listening: improve concentration
? Tendency to evaluate: delay evaluation
? Interest and attitudes: develop interest
? Conflicting information: confirm with feedback, clarify
? Differing status and position: encourage juniors to come up with ideas and listen
? Resistance to change: be flexible
? Refutations and arguments: enter into healthy discussions

Communication noise

In any communication model, noise is interference with the decoding of messages sent over a channel by an encoder. There are many examples of noise:
Environmental Noise: Noise that physically disrupts communication, such as standing next to loud speakers at a party, or the noise from a construction site next to a classroom making it difficult to hear the professor.
Physiological-Impairment Noise: Physical maladies that prevent effective communication, such as actual deafness or blindness preventing messages from being received as they were intended.
Semantic Noise: Different interpretations of the meanings of certain words. For example, the word "weed" can be interpreted as an undesirable plant in your yard, or as a euphemism for marijuana.
Syntactical Noise: Mistakes in grammar can disrupt communication, such as abrupt changes in verb tense during a sentence.
Organizational Noise: Poorly structured communication can prevent the receiver from accurate interpretation. For example, unclear and badly stated directions can make the receiver even more lost.
Cultural Noise: Stereotypical assumptions can cause misunderstandings, such as unintentionally offending a non-Christian person by wishing them a "Merry Christmas."
Psychological Noise: Certain attitudes can also make communication difficult. For instance, great anger or sadness may cause someone to lose focus on the present moment. Disorders such as Autism may also severely hamper effective communication.[11]