Barriers to Communication

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Barriers to Communication

• GXEX1406
• Thinking and Communication Skills

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Communication Path
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Thought
Understanding
Translation
Construction
Delivery
Reception
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Communication blocks

1. Noise
2. Word Walls/Language
3. Overload
4. Dialog cutoffs
5. Stereotyping
6. Deceit
7. Distrust
8. Games

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Noise

• Communication Path

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Thought
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Reception
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Noise - Cont.

• Difficult to hear.
• Did not get the message.
• Be sensitive to noise problems and adjust your
  environment accordingly.
• Stop the noise or move the communication
  elsewhere.

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Example situation

• Leman spent thirty years working with power
  tools. Somewhere in his early thirties he
  noticed that conversations in his van were
  difficult for him to follow. He thought the
  problem was the noisy van, and it was, except for
  one thing other people in the van understood the
  conversation. Only he couldnt follow the talk.

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Word Walls

• Communication Path

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Thought
Understanding
Translation
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Reception
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Word Walls - Cont.

• Two types of block
• 1. Unintentional block
• vocabulary, technical jargon.
• 2. Intentional block
• to look impressive.
• choose your vocabulary with care.
• speak to communicate and never speak to impress.

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Example situation

• Aminah recently called her telephone company
  for a business phone in her home. She wanted to
  know the rates for installation and so on. The
  employee informed her that the system interface
  for the new phone line would be installed.
  Aminah was puzzled and said What does that
  mean? the phone company representative said,
  the guys have to come out and put a phone jack
  on the outside of the house.

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Overload

• Communication Path

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Thought
Understanding
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Reception
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Overload - Cont.

• Too much input causes confusion.
• Problem with receivers ability to cope.
• The understanding of the message will be
  confused.
• The focus of attention is weak.

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Example situation

• MajuKita, like most companies, puts the
  secretarial staff in very public spaces. The
  result is that they are constantly on the phone
  answering an inquiry, at the same time they are
  waiting on people, at the same time they are
  trying to get typing done, at the same time they
  are preparing for a meeting, at the same time

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Dialog cutoffs

• Communication Path

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Reception
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Dialog cutoffs - Cont.

• Frequent interruptions ( often questions) are
  annoying and can destroy a conversation easily.
• More problem is completing sentence for others.
• Listen with respect.
• Do not cut off a speakers comments in any way,
  or the communication will be damaged.

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Example situation

• It is that habit some people have of
  completing our sentences for us. We start a
  sentence, and then out of nervousness,
  impatience, or excitement or some such cause,
  suddenly we hear and then and find the story
  written for us.

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Stereotyping

• Communication Path

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Thought
Understanding
Translation
Construction
Delivery
Reception
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Stereotyping - Cont.

• Misunderstanding, generalizing.
• Unshared meaning can be caused by different
  education,space, time and belief.
• Generalize about group women, men, workers,
  doctors etc.
• Positive stereotyping.

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Example situation

• Ali and Ahmad had been pretty good friends.
  Ahmad is a supervisor. During a perfectly normal
  conversation one day, Ali got angry about
  supervisors and ranted away in front of Ahmad,
  not at Ahmad. Ahmad was very offended because he
  was, after all, a supervisor. If Ali thinks they
  are all jerks, Ahmad reasoned, Ali must think he
  is a jerk also. He took offense because of the
  stereotyping Ali had used to blast supervisors.

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Deceit

• Communication Path

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Thought
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Reception
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Deceit - Cont.

• Encouraged to misjudge.
• Deceptive behavior is often motivated by hope
  that a person can be manipulated into certain
  perspective.
• Hidden agenda, conspiracy.

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Example situation

• A supervisor might sabotage talented employees
  who could threaten his position. He might let an
  employee leave early but report it as though he
  had not been told of the departure. He might
  provide faulty directives on purpose, construct
  impossible goals, or send the employee on all
  sorts of wild goose chases. He could easily
  overwork the employee to get rid of he/her.

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Distrust

• Communication Path

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Reception
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Distrust - Cont.

• Caused either by defensiveness or suspicion.
• A job that involves correcting people ,
  defensiveness can be a major difficulty from time
  to time.
• Suspicion can be element in a conversation
  between two people.
• Sincerity is the solution.

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Example situation

• Timahs job needs her to evaluate a lot of
  papers. They a re not all A papers. The problem
  is that as the grades get lower, defenses rise.
• A sales routine of even the briefest sort is
  something many people do not handle too well.

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Key strategies to tell someone what he or she did
wrong

• Make people realize you are there for their
  benefit.
• Share the corrections by placing emphasis on your
  own similar errors, or the commonness of the
  errors.
• Be descriptive and avoid value judgments. Eg, Say
  the job performance is not adequate. Do not say
  it was awful or a waste of time or junk.

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Key strategies to tell someone what he or she did
wrong - Cont.

• Suggest solutions, and use the words maybe and
  perhaps. Use these words to suggest solutions
  rather that demand them.
• Help people see solutions themselves.
• Be sure to avoid superiority. Authority may be
  appropriate, but superiority is a very different
  posture.
• Speak as the equal of the other person.

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Games

• Communication Path

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Thought
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Construction
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Reception
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Games - Cont.

• Deep-seated, serious conflict.
• 2 emotional patterns aggression, surrender.
• Use time ( an hour, a day) to remove yourself
  from the event and look for breathing space.
• Victory is not sweet when people surrender.
• In a company, you do not want an employee to
  surrender or withdraw you want an employee to
  understand.

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Reference/notes

• David W. Rigby, Workplace Communications for
  Engineering Technicians and Technologists,
  Prentice-Hall, 2001.page 102-118.