Discuss_the_Barriers_to_Good_Communication

Communication is what people need to do in everyday life. In an organization, communication is especially important, since people have to work together in order to reach certain outcomes and achievements. According to Robbins et al. (2008), communication in an organization functions as to control member behaviour, to foster motivation for what is to be done, to provide a release for emotional expression and to provide information to make decisions. As a key role to organisational success, communication is very important especially in the changing business environment nowadays. And also it is important for us to examine effective communication and the barriers to good communication. Therefore it is important to improve and have the right communication style within the organisation. However, no matter how good the communication system or channel is, barriers still exist. This essay sets out to discuss about successful organsational communication and identifies the barriers to effective communication. To better understand the process and styles of communication, here I will first review the definition of communication. There are in general 2 types of communication: verbal and nonverbal. Verbal is conveyed through language, which is the most common way of communication. Samovar et al. (2000, p. 122) explained language as a set of symbols; the rules for these symbols combined together are used and understood by a large community of people, which provides people a way to interact with the outside world. Nonverbal on the other hand, is other means that are different from languages, for example, gestures, signs, written forms of communication. People usually combine verbal language and nonverbal behaviour together to better express themselves. In an organisational setting, theories on communication are also widely discussed. In classical perspectives, communication is viewed as a managerial tool to command and control workers, which during this period the organsational structure is hierarchical and formal, communication is one way downward from the top level. In more recent theories, Katz & Kahn (1978) proposed a more open system within the organisation, which views the organisation as a functioning live organism. Organisations are open, self-renewing systems; therefore the communication is ongoing and constructive, where feedback loops to manage stability and adaptation within the organisation. Communication became more important, since it flows not only downward, but also multidirectional, and more informal. Communication then became an ongoing activity, which created, expressed, maintained and transformed the organisational realities. Pandy & Garnett (2005) mentioned that in administrative and organisation theory, it is assumed that sound communication leads to sound performance, indicating that communication is getting more and more important in organisations, therefore it is worth to pay attention on the effectiveness of communication. No matter how good are the communication system functions in organisations, barriers will occur due to some reasons. In Robbins et al. (2008), they outlined several barriers to good communication. Filtering barriers is when a sender’s information reaches the receiver, the receiver only intakes the information more favorable to him or her, filters out the one they don’t want to hear. Selective perception is when people selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their interests, background, experience and attitudes. It is a bit similar to filtering, as ignoring some part of the information without understanding the whole picture. Information overload happens when the information inflow exceeds an individual’s processing capacity. Too much information received may result in unable to comprehend all the information. Other barriers include emotions the received have while receiving the information; it influences the way message is interpreted. Language barrier may occur since different people speak differently, with different accent, vocabulary or even different dialects. Some words may have multiple meanings, or being used differently, therefore using difficult words or confusing words may cause misunderstanding. And lastly the communication apprehension can be a barrier. It is an individual level of fear or anxiety about communication towards oral or written communication, or both. The above-mentioned barriers provided by Robbins et al. are all individual level, which view the information as a linear process coming from the sender to the receiver, it happens between personal communications, how individuals perceive and comprehend the message. From a broader level of communication within an organisation, there are several barriers I will like to discuss. First are the physical barriers. This is due to the nature of the environment. As people communicate, face-to-face is always considered the best way, since both the sender and receiver can interact more. Physical barriers are the ones that prevents people from communicating face-to-face, for example if 2 employees are in different office rooms or different buildings, it will be more difficult for them to communicate if they are working in the same team or project. Nowadays there are more and more multi-national corporations which spans through different parts of the world, some employees may be located in different countries, not only in different places, different time zones also complicates the way of communication. Some equipment may help and improve the long-distance communication between employees. Video conference calls can be one effective way. Other kinds of physical barriers may be more minor than distance and proximity, such as distractions in the background, noise, poor lighting in the environment, or the room temperature can also affect employees’ satisfaction, morale and concentration, which in turn interfere with good communication in the workplace (Stone & English, 1998). System design within an organsation can also be a barrier to good communication. This is mainly related to the organsational structure, if the structure of the organisation is well defined, employees know who to report to, and who to work with, message will be send to the right person and correctly. On the other hand, if the organisational structure is unclear, communication will be confusing and difficult. For practitioners, they should pay attention to how the organisation structure is designed, organisations can decide if the structure should be hierarchical, flat, or matrix structure, as long as is it well defined. Other example related to system design is the information system. Whether there is enough training provided to the employees, supervision from the managers and goal clarity. The employees can have better performance when they are certain about their roles and responsibilities are, and know what is expected from them. Pandy & Garnett (2005) founded that goal clarity is positively related to communication performance. The next critical barrier to good communication is cultural barrier. From an organisation point of view, different company may have their own corporate culture, ranging from the whole corporate, like a cross-national company, to a small work team. Each group of people may from their own way of behavioural patterns, and they accept it as a sense of belonging to the group. Samovar et al. (2000, p.36) define culture as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, actions, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and artifacts acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving, and it has close relationship to communication. People of different cultures will not perceive things the same way, or may have different communication preferences. It is important for big corporations to pay attention to the culture they foster, and the different cultures across different countries if they are a multi-national corporation, because cultural barriers in business may lead to failure. Conclusion For all the barriers we discussed above, there are some concluding guidelines that should help for better communication. Not just attempting to remove the specific barriers to good communication, since these barriers will always exist, there are some ways to lower the barriers. First of all, organisations can include communication skills to be evaluated as a part of their employee’s job description. They should be able to help each other improve their communication skills, work together to identify communication problems. Secondly, providing communication training to employees help reducing the barriers. To increase their awareness of possible barriers in communication, and train them to have a better attitude towards interpersonal communications helps. Thirdly, make the communication goal oriented, so each time before communication, set a desired result for the communication, so the sender and receiver will have a mutual understanding, in turn leads to better and more effective communication. Moreover, enrich the possible channels of communication. There should be multiple ways of communicating with each other, depending on the situation, the location and whom you communicate with. Whether face-to-face, with visual aids while communicating, sending e-mails or making a videoconference, all will help make a better communication. And finally, try to embrace the fact that sometimes communications fails. Accepting the miscommunications, and try to work it out as to lower the negative effects it causes will be a good way. Reference Katz , D. & Kahn, R. L. 1978. The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: Wiley. Morreale, S. P. & Pearson, J. C. 2008. 'Why Communication Education is Important: The Centrality of the Discipline in the 21st Century', Communication Education, 57(2), pp 224-240. Pandey, S. K., & Garnett, J. L. 2005. ‘Exploring public sector communication performance: Testing a model and drawing implications’, Public Administration Review, 66(1), pp 37-51. Robbins S P., Judge, T.A. Millett B & Waters-Marsh T. 2008. Organisational Behaviour, 5th Ed, Fenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education. Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., & Stefani, L. A. 2000. Communication between cultures, Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Stone, N. J., & English, A. J. 1998. ‘Task type, posters, and workspace color on mood, satisfaction, and performance’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 18(2), pp 175-185.