Communication

(Unit II)

Anil Verma
 Major Difficulties in Communication
Main difficulties usually experienced in communication:
• Ensuring that the interpreted meaning affects behaviour in the
desired way
• Achieving accuracy in communicating the message
• Ensuring that the message conveys the desired meaning
The purpose of two-way communication is to establish understanding and
rapport between the sender (speaker) and receiver (audience). However, the
communicators (Sender / receiver) generally experience the following
difficulties:
• No perceived benefit to the audience: The receiver (listener) finds the
message of no relevance or interest and, therefore, remains unresponsive.
• Noise, outside disturbance: To receive the message correctly, the receiver
needs to remain attentive without being disturbed by any kind of physical,
environmental, or psychological disturbance.
• Variations in listening skills: The ability to listen with comprehension is not
equally developed in all persons. Some individuals, therefore, respond to2
communication by missing parts of the complete message.
 Major Difficulties in Comm. (contd.)
• Cultural Differences: The word culture refers to the entire system of an
individual’s beliefs, social customs, personal values, educational
background, and family nurturing. The problem of proper understanding
arises in situations of inter-cultural communication because of the
differences in cultures across the world.
• Complexity of subject matter / message: A difficult and involved message
acts as a barrier to a smooth understanding of the message.
• Time restraints, real or perceived: Both the sender and receiver lose
organised exposition and reception of the message if they are pressured by
a lack of time.
• Personal biases or hostility: Prejudice and resentment towards the speaker
condition the understanding of the message.
• Difficult Questions: Questions regarding personal behaviour and
management policies and practices may not be easy to answer. They are to
be responded to with carefully considered honesty and frankness if the
questioner is to be satisfied with the answer.
• Sensitive Issues: A situation or subject that involves the other person’s
feelings and problems needs to be dealt with sensitively and carefully, 3
because the matter may upset people.
 Barriers to Communication
Barriers to communication may arise at any of the
following levels:
• The Sender’s level in
1. Formulating / organising thought, ideas, message
2. Encoding the message
• The receiver’s level in
1. Receiving the message
2. Decoding the received message
3. Understanding / interpreting the message
• Transmission level where ‘noise’ occurs
• The feedback / reaction level that is necessary condition of
the completion of the entire process
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 Barriers to Communication (contd.)
• Lack of Planning – the message may not be properly organised
or composed, or transmitted through a wrongly chosen medium
• Wrong / Unclarified Assumptions – Communication quite often
breaks down or becomes an embarrasing affair if we keep
acting on assumptions without caring to seek clarifications.
• Semantic Problems – Any problems in communication arising
from the expression / transmission of meaning are called
semantic problems or barriers. e.g. An advertisement says, “We
give you much more”. It is an ambiguous statement. The
question arises, “More than what?” Therefore, one must aim at
simplicity, clarity and brevity so as to minimise the chances of
different interpretations.
• Cultural Barriers – Especially, in international environment,
cultural differences often cause communication problems. The
same category of words, phrases, symbols, actions, colours
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mean different things to people of different countries / cultures.
Barriers to Communication (contd.)
• Socio-psychological Barriers – The attitudes and opinions,
place in the society and status- consciousness arising from
one’s position in the hierarchical structure of the organisation,
the state of one’s relations with peers, seniors, juniors, family
background – all these factors deeply influence one’s ability to
communicate both as a sender and receiver, both in encoding
and decoding the messages.
• Emotions – Encoding and decoding of messages depends to
quite some extent on one’s emotional state at a particular time.
Extreme emotions, like jubilation or depression, are likely to
hinder effective communication.Anger is worst enemy of comm.
• Selective Perception – The receivers selectively see and hear
depending upon their needs, motivation, background,
experience and other personal characteristics. While decoding
the messages, they project their own interests and expectations
into the process of communication further leading to a particular
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kind of feedback. We interpret what we see and call it reality.
 Barriers to Communication (contd.)
• Filtering – Filtering means that a sender manipulates
information in such a way that it will be seen more favourably
by the receiver. e.g. a manager likes to tell his boss what he
feels his boss wants to hear. In this process, the result is that
the man at the top perhaps never gets objective information.
• Information overload – Unrestricted flow of information may,
and very often does, become another barrier. Too much
information may stifle the senior executive or bore and frustrate
him. People respond to this kind of information in different
ways. They may ignore certain information, likely to make
errors, delay in processing / responding to information, and may
become highly selective in their response.
• Loss by transmission – When messages pass on from person
to person in a series of transmissions, they are likely to become
less and less accurate. They get diluted on the way.
• Poor retention – Depending upon one’s mental make-up, one 7
may not always retain what he is told. Thus, repetition is reqd.
 Barriers to Communication (contd.)
• Poor listening – A major barrier to comm. is poor listening.
There are too many talkers and too few listeners. Serious
problems crop up owing to poor listening and hasty evaluation.
• Insufficient period for adjustment – People require their own
time to think about the full meaning, implications, and
consequences of the message. It is, therefore, important to give
them sufficient time. Only then communication will be effective.
• Goal-conflicts – Various units and sub-units in an organisation
internalise their own goals, leading to splitting or bifurcation of
interests. This internalisation of sub-unit goals leads to goal-
conflicts while comm. can be a conflict-reduction mechanism.
Conflict acts as a communication-reduction mechanism.
• Offensive style of communication – The greatest barrier to
comm. Is quite often the style of communication used by the
manager. When a manager sends a message in such a way
that the workers / juniors become defensive, he contributes to 8
the negative factor of poor interpersonal relationship.
 Conditions for successful Comm.
• The crucial difference between effective and ineffective
communication is that if something is communicated and is not
fully understood by the receiver, then communication has been
ineffective, not fully serving the condition of being understood. If
the message has been understood, the response of the
receiver – the feedback - indicates this.

• Keith Davis lays down the Rule of Five to guide the receiver to
be an effective element of the communication process. “In the
communication process, the role of the receiver is, as important
as that of the sender. There are five receiver steps in the
process of communication – receive, understand, accept, use
and give feedback. Without these steps being followed by the
receiver, no communication process would be complete and
successful.” 9
Conditions for successful Comm.(contd)
Thus, communication can be considered successful when:
• The message is properly understood.
• The purpose of the sender is fulfilled.
• The sender and the receiver of the message remain linked
through feedback.

Sender Message Receiver

Feedback

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 How to overcome Barriers to
Communication
• Taking the receiver more seriously
• Crystal clear message
• Delivering messages skilfully
• Focusing on the receiver
• Using multiple channels to communicate instead of
relying on one channel
• Ensuring appropriate feedback
• Be aware of your own state of mind/emotions/attitude

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