This document discusses various barriers to communication. There are 5 main categories of barriers: 1) Physical barriers such as noise, time, distance, age, gender etc. that interfere with message transmission. 2) Semantic barriers due to lack of common language, differing interpretations, poor vocabulary. 3) Socio-psychological barriers like attitudes, emotions, closed-mindedness that influence understanding. 4) Choosing the wrong medium to convey a message. 5) Different perceptions of reality due to individual abstraction, inferences, and evaluations of situations. Overcoming barriers requires awareness of these filters and finding ways to ensure shared understanding.

1. BARRIERS
TO
COMMUNICATION
PREPARED
BY
MS. FORAM A. PATEL

2. Miscommunication can originate
at the level of:
The Sender
The Medium
The Receiver

3. 1. Physical Barriers
Noise:
-- It interferes with the transmission of signals.
-- Unwanted signals disturbs the reception
-- It can be from visual, Audio-visual, External environment.
-- Poor telephone connection
-- Bad handwriting – technical noise.
Time:
-- Amount of time that passes between transactions.
-- If employee not talking to boss for a long time, wife not
talking to husband for a long period- may be communication
gap in relationship.
-- A guest arriving at late night may not communicate much.
-- Employee working in two different department or shifts.
-- A phone call at mid-night.

4. Distance
-- If the technical devices are not present.
-- Faulty sitting arrangement in the office.
-- 1.5 to 4 feet ideal distance for personal communication.
Age
-- Age, maturity, educational background.
-- Generation gap – style, use of words
Gender
-- Men and women talk with mere intimacy in their own group.
-- In group man are more acquisitive, assertive, self confident
and aggressive then women.
-- Gender stands barrier to girls.
-- Boys are told to “hit back” and girls are told to “keep calm”.
-- Some times girls brought up in such a climate, will avoid eye
contact and also speak in low voice.

5. 2. Semantic Barriers
Lack of Common Language:
 Language uses oral and written symbols to
transmute meanings.
 Each person has his own vocal symbols,
grammatical structure.
 There should be a common language; its words,
phrases, inflections, clauses, structure, etc. to
communicate.

6. Interpretation of words:
A research found 14,000 meaning of 500 words- multiple
meaning.
For e g. The word “run” has 110 meaning.
Same way for “Value”, “File” and so on ……….
For example the word “Value’’ can be used
Radium is a valuable metal? Value of what? --- price or
utility
What is the value of this ring?
What is the value of learning about communication?
I value my good friend.
I got a good value of my money.
There is something wrong with the tone value in all his
paintings

7. Poor Vocabulary: Poor Grammar and
Punctuation
 Mars the oral and written communication
 Punctuation can change the meaning.
 For e g., Girls don’t go there.
 Girls, Don’t GO there!
Round about Verbiage
 It is rounding about the unnecessary use of the words to
express the idea.
-- Instead of -----
 Commence -- Start/Begin
 Prior to -- Before
 In a number of instance -- Usually
 In the majority of case -- Some

8. Correctives for Semantic Barriers:
Use of familiar words expression.
Clarify while using new expression.
Choose the words with the positive
connotation rather then negative.

9. 3. Socio-psychological Barriers
Attitudes and opinions
 Personal attitude and opinion color the content /
information.
 We receive favorably if information agrees our attitude or
opinion.
 We disagree if the information contradicts our accepted
belief.
 Changes in the policy of org. – if advantageous to an
employee, he welcomes and if not then rejects.
 This is the case why people resist change at workplace.
 Attitude provides need satisfaction.
 Attitudes are extremely different to change.

10. Emotion
If the sender is worried, excited, afraid, nervous his
thinking will be blurred and he will not be able to organize
his massage.
Words/ body gestures communicate state of mind.
Agree person will use certain words and sentences
repeatedly.
Communication should be avoided in extremely emotional
state of mind i. e. agree or excitement.
Same way receiver should never react if his mind is
disturbed.

11. Closed mind: narrow perspectives
 Full of prejudices
 Not prepared to reconsider his/her opinions
words like:
 “My mind is made up. I know what I know, I don’t
Want to know anything else.”
 “I have been in this business for more than 20
years, you mean you know more then what I know
about my business?” What can you teach me?
 Attempts can be made to counteract their
prejudice, but their react with anger and give
sharp rebuff.

12. Status Conscious
Status, position or social rank in a group.
It relates with person’s ability, amount of pay, job-skills,
seniority, type of work assigned, age etc.
High status employees enjoy more power and influence.
Lower – status employees are revenant to communicate
their problem, Suggestion, mistake etc. or to seek
favorable information.
Air – conditioned cabin, carpet on a floor, no. of phones on
the table—a worker may not enter the cabin.
High status employee wants to maintain their status so
they avoid suggestions form the lover level.
Assumptions at both the levels create barriers for face to
face communication.
It’s a matter of developing a confidence.

13. The Source of communication
People react to the source of fact rather then the fact itself.
A Boss always finding fault with others - once in a while
complements – employees will start suspecting.
Statement of a grapevine will not be heard, but the same
coming from the superior will be taken seriously.
Inattentiveness
An adult mind resists changes so mind remains inattentive to the
new idea.
Change threatens security and stability so people unconsciously
become inattentive towards new ideas to resist change.
Unconsciously we become inattentive if the communication
contains new ideas and our mind refuses to respond to it.

14. Faulty Transmission
A massage is never transmitted in it entirely
Board of Directors decision is in resolution from. It cannot be passed to
the factory workers
 It is translated – and in doing so massage gets altered or the receiver
receives a part massage.
Poor Retention
Poor retention of communication also acts as barriers.
Studies show that employees retain only 50% of the information
communicated to them.
Poor retention may head to imperfect response, which farther hampers
the communication process.
Unsolicited Communication
Unsolicited communication has to face more strong barriers then
solicited communication.
E g. – Advice: It should be perused that someone would listen to it.
E g. – Sales latter: If it is unsolicited then the person will not pay much
attention to it.

15. 4.Wrong Choice of a Medium
If a salesman has to submit a report on the
comparative sales figures of last five years, and he
writes a lengthy paragraph or communicate on phone,
he will fail to communicate. He should present the
figures in tabular form, or preferably make a diagram
which will make communication simple.
A manager wants to compliment about an employee
for a distinguished performance - shall he send person
with a memo? The manager should decide the medium
that transmits his compliment with a personal touch.
Unsuitable medium is the biggest barrier to
communication.

16. 5.Different Comprehension of
Reality
Reality of an object, event, and person differs from
person to person.
 It is not fixed but complex, infinite and continuously
changing.
 Each person has limited sensory perception and unique
mental filter. No two people perceive the reality in an
identical manner.
 This happens due to people’s different abstraction,
inferences and evaluations of reality.

17. Abstracting
It is a process of focusing attention to some parts of
details and ignoring others.
Sometimes abstracting is necessary as it helps saving
time. But at the same time poses barrier to
communication.
Allness Fallacy – is belief where persons thinks whatever
he/she knows about the object is the all / total reality
infect abstract can never be whole.
To overcome this:
We should try to make our abstract, representative of the
whole situation
We should also realize that others can pick different
ideas and facts from the same situation and we should be
mentally prepared for what others have to say.

18. Slanting
Slanting is giving bias or slant to the particular reality.
Slanting is similar to All-ness fallacy. In all-ness we know
the part and ignore the rest but we think that we know the
whole.
 In slanting we are aware of the existence of other aspect
but we deliberately select a few and make them
representative of the whole.
Due to one executive’s guilty we suspect the whole image
of the firm.

19. Inferring
What we see, hear, feel, taste, smell can be verified to confirm
fact, but some statements go beyond facts and the conclusions
based on facts are called inferences.
When we drop a mail we are sure it will reach.
If rain falls we infer that prices will rise.
In business also we make inferences. For e.g. If manager
observes a particular worker leaving office one hour late
everyday, recently:
What can be the inferences?
1. Is he extremely hard working and sincere that does not mind
even sitting overtime?
2. Is he ineffective to finish the work in time?
3. Is he burdened with overwork and deserves relief?
4. Is he in search of some secrets? Which he expects to find after
everyone leaves.
5. Is he overstaying to impress his superior?

20. T H A N K
Y O U