Communication Barriers in workplace [MBA case study]

Communication barriers in the workplace prevents the proper exchange of ideas or thoughts. Communication barriers can exist in several forms such as: physical, language, status, and even gender barriers. These barriers may cause tension, poor performance among employees and may also result in overall unmotivated workforce.

Barriers in the Communication Environment Within any communication environment, messages can be disrupted by a variety of communication barriers.

These barriers include noise and distractions, competing messages, filters, and channel breakdowns:

Noise and distractions

External distractions range from uncomfortable meeting rooms to computer screens cluttered with instant messages and reminders popping up all over the place.

Internal distractions are thoughts and emotions that prevent audiences from focusing on incoming messages.

The common habit of multitasking—attempting more than one task at a time—is practically guaranteed to create communication distractions. Multitasking dramatically increases the workload on your brain because you’re forcing it to constantly switch between sets of rules and contexts, which requires it to reorient each time.

Rather than getting more done, research shows that chronic multitasking often reduces productivity and increases errors. As more communication takes place on mobile devices, the need to insulate yourself from noise and distractions will keep growing.

Competing messages

Having your audience’s undivided attention is a rare luxury. In most cases you must compete with other messages that are trying to reach your audience at the same time.

Filters

Messages can be blocked or distorted by filters, any human or technological interventions between the sender and the receiver. Filtering can be both intentional (such as automatically filing incoming messages based on sender or content) or unintentional (such as an overly aggressive spam filter that deletes legitimate emails).

The structure and culture of an organization can also inhibit the flow of vital messages. And in some cases the people or companies you rely on to deliver your message can distort it or filter it to meet their own needs.

Channel breakdowns

Sometimes the channel simply breaks down and fails to deliver your message. A colleague you were counting on to deliver a message to your boss might have forgotten to do so, or a computer server might have crashed and prevented your blog from updating.

As you can see, a number of barriers can block or distort messages before they reach the intended audience. Minimizing barriers and distractions in the communication environment is everyone’s responsibility.

Common barriers to effective communication include:

Use of jargon. Over-complicated or unfamiliar terms.
Emotional barriers and taboos.
Lack of attention, interest, distractions, or irrelevance to the receiver.
Differences in perception and viewpoint.
Physical disabilities such as hearing problems or speech difficulties.
Physical barriers to non-verbal communication.
Language differences and the difficulty in understanding unfamiliar accents.
Expectations and prejudices which may lead to false assumptions or stereotyping. People often hear what they expect to hear rather than what is actually said and jump to incorrect conclusions.
Cultural differences. The norms of social interaction vary greatly in different cultures, as do the way in which emotions are expressed. For example, the concept of personal space varies between cultures and between different social settings.

MBA case study / assignment questions on Communication Barriers in organizations:

To facilitate inter-departmental cooperation, what measures would you recommend to your colleagues and subordinates to take? What kind of barriers in communication do you face and what is your strategy to overcome them?

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