Communication is the process or tool for sharing the information within a company or outside the company. Barriers are anything that prevents us from receiving and understanding the messages others use to convey their information, ideas, and thoughts.

1. COMMUNICATION BARRIERS
Md Raju Pathan
Group: SMNVV18AK

2. Content
 Concept
 Types of barriers
 Physicalor Environmental barriers
 Physiological or biological barriers
 Semantic or Language barriers
 Personal barriers
 Emotional barriers
 Socio-Psychological Barriers
 Cross-Cultural Barriers
 Organizational barriers
 Conclusion

3. Concept
• Communication is the process or tools for sharing the information within company
or outside company.
• Barriers is anything that prevents us from receiving and understanding the
messages others use to convey their information, ideas and thoughts.
• Process is the steps in order to achieve a successful communication.

4. Block diagram of Communication process

5. 8 types of barriers:
1. Physicalor Environmental barriers
2. Physiological or biological barriers
3. Semantic or Language barriers
4. Personal barriers
5. Emotional barriers
6. Socio-Psychological Barriers
7. Cross-Cultural Barriers
8. Organizational barriers

6. 1. Physical or Environmental barriers
• The major environmental / physical barriers are Time, Place, Space, Climate and
Noise.
• Some of them are easy to alter whereas, some may prove to be tough obstacles in
the process of effective communication.
• These factors may just cause distraction leading to inattentiveness or totally alter
the message, causing miscommunication.

7. Faulty Organizational Structure
• Large working area
• Closed office doors
• Separate areas for people of different status
• It forbids team member from effective interaction with each other.

8. Noise
• Noise is the first major barrier to communication.
• For example, the noise of the traffic around a school obstructs the smooth flow of
information between the teacher and the students.
• Physical noise (outside disturbance)
• Psychological noise (inattentiveness)
• Written noise (bad handwriting/typing)
• Visual noise (late arrival of employees)

9. Time and Distance
• Time differences between two different countries. Even the people working in
different shifts in the same organization.
• Improper Time
• Defects in Medium of communication
• Network Facilities
• Mechanical Breakdowns

10. 2.Physiological or biological barriers
 Physiological barriers are related to a person’s health and fitness.
 This may arise due to disabilities of the sender or the receiver.
 For example: poor eyesight, deafness and uncontrolled body movement.
 Physical defects in one’s body may also disrupt communication.

11. Poor Listening Skills
• Listening to others is considered a difficult task.
• A typical speaker says about 125 words per minute.
• The typical listener can receive 400–600 words per minute.
• Thus, about three-fourth of listening time is free time. The free time often
sidetracks the listener.
• The solution is to be an active rather than passive listener

12. Information Overload
• Nurses are surrounded with a pool of information.
• It is essential to control the flow of the information, else the information is likely
to be misinterpreted or forgotten or overlooked.
• As a result, communication may get distorted.

13. Poor Retention
• Human memory cannot function beyond a limit.
• One cannot always retain all the facts/information about what is being told to
him/her especially if he/she is not interested or not attentive.
• This leads to communication breakdown.

14. 3. Semantic or Language barriers
• This occurs when the speaker/writer means one thing and the listener/ reader takes
it in a different meaning. For example, one person gives an advertisement for
selling a bad dog which actually refers to attacking power of a dog to guard the
house.
• But the reader may misunderstand it otherwise.
1. The meaning of words differs context-wise.
2. Idiomatic words should not be taken in a literal sense.
3. Opinions may be given as facts.
4. Using abstract words send a wrong message.
5. Lack of proper language skills leads to wrong choice of words or words with
associative values.
6. Homonyms distort the meaning. For example, there and their, once and ones.

15. 7. Difference in accent mars delivery and understanding.
8. Inadequate vocabulary is a handicap in communication.
9. Symbols cause communication problem.
10. Poor composition of speech, harsh voice, lengthy paragraph, verbosity, etc.,
spoil communication effectiveness.
11. Use of technical jargons creates confusion between the sender and the receiver.
12. Sender sending un-clarified messages leads the receiver to have his own
assumptions.
13. Lack of clarity, precision, coherence and awkward sentences lead to creation of
bad message.

16. 4. Personal barriers
• The personal factors of both sender and receiver may influence effective
communication.
• Some of the personal barriers as follows:
1. Fear of challenge to authority – If a superior has a fear, that sharing of specific
information with his/her subordinates may affect his/her authority adversely then
he/she may withhold or suppress such information.
2. Lack of confidence of superior on his subordinates – If superiors do not have
confidence on the competence of their subordinates then they may not share
important information or seek their suggestions.

17. 3. Unwillingness to communicate – Some subordinates may not be confident or
willing to communicate with their superiors with a fear that they may be
misunderstood and it may adversely affect their interest in the organisation.
4. Lack of proper incentives – Subordinates may not give proper feedback, share
market information or suggestions to their superiors if there is no financial or non-
financial incentive for initiating positive communication.
For example – sam, the head of sales team, takes suggestions from team members
and use them to prepare his presentation. In his presentation, he does not recognize
or appreciate his team members. This disappoints all the team members and they
decide not to give any suggestions in future.

18. 5. Emotional barriers
• Emotional or psychological factors are the prime barriers in interpersonal
communication.
• The meaning ascribed to a message depends upon the emotional or psychological
status of both the parties involved. In a communication, apart from the message,
there is a meta-message, that is, what one gets out of a message when decoding.
• Meta-message, the emotions of the receiver play a vital role and he may not be at a
wavelength as that of the communicator.

19. Following are some emotional barriers:
1.Premature Evaluation:
• Rogers and Roethlisberger in 1952, first pointed out this barrier. Premature
evaluation is the tendency of prematurely evaluating communications, rather than
to keep an uncompromised position during the interchange. Such evaluation stops
the transfer of information and begets in the sender a sense of futility.
• This barrier can be remedied by ’empathy’, non-evaluative listening, where the
communication is listened to in a non-committal and unprejudiced way, so that
sagacious decision and action can follow

20. 2. Inattention:
• The preoccupied mind of a receiver and the resultant non-listening is one of the
major chronic psychological barriers.
• It is a common phenomenon that people simply fail to react to bulletins, notices,
minutes and reports.
3. Loss by Transmission and Poor Retention:
• When communication passes through various levels in the organization,
successive transmissions of the same message are decreasingly accurate. It is said
that in case of oral communications about 30 per cent of the information is lost in
each transmission. Even in case of written communication, loss of meaning might
occur as far as the appended interpretation, if any, is concerned. Poor retention of
the information is again a malady. It is shown that employees retain about 50 per
cent of information only, whereas supervisors retain about 60 per cent of it.

21. 4.Undue Reliance on the Written Word:
• Written word is no substitute for sound face-to-face relationships and that
employees cannot be persuaded to accept companies’ viewpoint and policies
through ‘slick’, easy to read, will-illustrated publications, unless there is a fair
degree of mutual trust and confidence between the organization and its employees.
Further, a written communication might fail to explain the purpose of order,
procedure or directive.
• Chester Barnard has laid down that a communication must appeal to the receiver
as consonant with the organization’s purpose and with his own personal interest.
Written communication often tells what is to be done, but not why it should be
done, and it lacks the persuasive quality. Moreover, a written communication can
be above the level of readership, and failure to ascertain the response to
communication is also there. Hence, written media must be considered as
supplementary to productive face-to-face relationships.

22. 5. Distrust of Communicator:
• It arises out of ill-considered judgements or illogical decisions or frequent
countermanding of the original communication by the communicator.
• Repeated experience of this kind gradually conditions the receiver to delay action
or act unenthusiastically, hence making the communication unsuccessful, though
apparently it is complete.
6. Failure to Communicate:
• It is quite accepted fact that managers often fail to transmit the needed messages.
• This might be because of laziness on the part of the communicator, or assuming
that ‘everybody knows’, or procrastination or ‘hogging’ information or
deliberately to embarrass.

23. 6. Socio-Psychological Barriers
• Socio-phychological is like Emotions like fear, anger, worry, nervousness block
the mind. It also blurs the thinking power and one fails to organise the message
properly. When the message is not organised properly it cannot be conveyed
effectively.
Here are eight important socio-psychological barriers in communication:
1. Attitude and opinions:
• The personal attitude and opinions of the receiver often interfere with
communication. If the message is consistent with the receiver’s attitude and
opinion they receive it favourably. When the message is inconsistent with the
receivers attitude and opinions, they are not likely to be received favourably.

24. 2. Emotions:
Emotions like fear, anger, worry, nervousness block the mind. It also blurs the
thinking power and one fails to organise the message properly. When the message is
not organised properly it cannot be conveyed effectively.
3. Status difference:
Status consciousness is a very serious barrier. Subordinates fail to communicate to
with their superiors because either they are too conscious of their low status or too
afraid of being snubbed off. Similarly many executives keep distance from their
subordinates thinking it too degrading to consult them.
4. In attention:
In attention arises due to mental preoccupations or distractions. These causes
barriers to communication.

25. 5. Closed mind:
A person with closed mind is not willing to listen and is not prepared to reconsider his
opinion. As such it is very difficult to communicate with such person.
6. Distrust:
Distrust after fails to deliver the right message. When the receiver is biased or hostile
towards the sender the message is – either ignored or misinterpreted.
7. Poor retention:
Successive transmission of the message are decreasingly accurate. In the process of
transmission a part of the message is lost at every stage. This is because of poor retention on
the part of the receiver. Thus incomplete message is conveyed.
8. Premature evaluation:
Premature evaluation prevents effective communication. Some people form a judgement
even before receiving the complete message. And once judgement is already formed the
mind is closed to the rest of the message.

26. 7. Cross-Cultural Barriers
Culture is a shared set of values and attributes of a group. It is the sum total of ways
of living built by a group which are transmitted from generation to generation.
Culture differs in terms of language, values, norms of behaviour, concept of time
and space, perception, basic personality, national character, etc. Words, colours and
symbols cannot have different meanings to different cultures.
Examples:
1. Wearing white colour dress is inauspicious in some countries, while it is a
wedding dress in some other countries.
2. If a Japanese says ‘yes’ he means he is listening, while ‘yes’ in America means ‘I
agree’.
3. Punctuality is the norm in some countries, while it is a matter of convenience for
some other nations.
Thus, communication can acquire different connotations and opposite meaning
thanks to cross cultural barriers.

27. 8. Organizational barriers
The organizational barriers to communication are:
1. Organizational Policy 2. Organizational Rules and Regulations 3. Status
Relationships 4. Complexity in Organization Structure 5. Organizational
Facilities.
1. Organizational Policy:
• The general organizational policy regarding communication acts as an overall
guideline to everyone in the organization regarding how he is normally expected
to behave in this matter. The policy might be in the form of explicit declaration in
writing, or as is very commonly the case, it has to be interpreted from the
behaviour of organization members, particularly people at the top. If this policy is
not supportive to the flow of communication in different directions,
communication flow would not be smooth and adequate.

28. 2. Organizational Rules and Regulations:
Organizational rules and regulations affect the flow of communication by
prescribing the subject-matter to the communicated and also the channel through
which these are to be communicated. The rules may restrict the flow of certain
messages and may leave many important ones.
On the other hand, communication through proper channel in a specified way
prescribed by these rules delays it and works against the willingness of persons to
convey the message. This barrier is strongly operative in Indian public sector
enterprises where observance of rules and regulations is more rigid.

29. 3. Status Relationships:
The placing of people in superior subordinate capacity in the formal organization
structure also blocks the flow of communication and more particularly in upward
direction. Greater the difference between hierarchical positions in terms of their
status, greater would be the possibility of communication breakdown.
4. Complexity in Organization Structure:
In an organization where there are a number of managerial levels, communication
gets delayed, chances of communication getting distorted are more and the number
of filtering points is more. This is more true in case of upward communication,
because people generally do not like to pass up the adverse criticism either or
themselves or of their superiors.

30. 5. Organizational Facilities:
Organizational facilities provided for smooth, adequate, clear and timely flow of
communication may take a number of forms. If these are not properly emphasized
generally people fail to make effective communication.

31. Conclusion
• At the last we can overcome the communication barriers by following some way
such as:-
• Communicate Only What Is Needed. Noise and distractions can clog up
the communication process on all levels.
• Avoid Slang.
• Remain Aware of Cultural Differences.
• Stay Open Minded for Questions and Answers.
• Choosing a Communication way channel properly.

32. Questions for the student:
1. Give examples of physical barriers. Improper Time? (Sl. 8)
2. How to improve memory in communication? (Sl. 12).
3. You comment: „Use of technical jargons creates confusion between the sender
and the receiver“ (Sl. 14).
4. You comment: „It is said that in case of oral communications about 30 per cent of
the information is lost in each transmission“ (Sl. 19).

33. 1. Give examples of physical barriers. Improper Time? (Sl. 8)
1. Answer: like as faulty organizational structure, Noise, time and distance.
Disturbance in hearing due to thunders, telephone call disconnection, problems in
television reception, message not being sent in chat.

34. 2. How to improve memory in communication? (Sl. 12).
• Focus Your Attention.
• Avoid Cramming.
• Structure and Organize.
• Utilize Mnemonic Devices.
• Elaborate and Rehearse.
• Visualize Concepts.
• Read Out Loud.

35. 3. Use of technical jargons creates confusion between the
sender and the receiver“
• In every organization have a common knowledge such as business jargan, that is
unique for all organization. To use the jargon who is not familiar with jargon
create a difference in communication skills.

36. It is said that in case of oral communications about 30 per cent
of the information is lost in each transmission
• Its transmission.