Barriers & remidies for effective communication
Physical Barriers
One of the major barriers to communication is the physical barrier. Physical barriers are present in the area surrounding the sender and receiver. Physical barriers include a work environment that has a lot of background noise, poor lighting or unstable temperature. These barriers can affect how individuals try to send and receive messages. If there is a lot of background noise than the receiver may not hear what the sender is saying. If the temperature in a work environment is too hot or too cold the sender may not be as focused on the message that they are trying to send. If people in the work place are separated by others, communication is not as effective. As long as people still have a personal space that they can call their own, proximity to others aids communication because it helps us get to know one another.

Communication can face barriers and it can be due to delay, distortion and dilution. When the information gets distorted due to the faulty system or jealousy or faulty listening or inadequate vocabulary or baldly chosen words, it looses its meaning. There are psychological barriers which are caused by prejudice, preconceived notion, distrust of the communicator, misinterpretation of his intention and the things like. Dilution is caused by a person who is posing as a yes man as to what he expects to hear rather than presenting the actual feedback of the matter concerned.

The reasons that can cause interferences in communication are personal, physical and semantic (science of sound). These barriers need to be lowered to achieve effectiveness in communication. There have to be methods to overcome these barriers as they help in enhancing the effectiveness in communication.

Communication is the integral part of an organization therefore it becomes necessary to overcome the barriers in order to minimize the effect of these barriers. There are many methods to overcome these barriers they are:

1. The policy of the organization must be clear and explicit. It should be designed in such a way so that it encourages communication flow. It should be easily understandable by all the levels. The policies for communication should be clear and should favor the promotion of communication in the organization.

2. The policy should be able to specify the subject to be communicated to others. It means that the subject matter should be expressive enough to determine the needs of the organization rather than creating any confusion.

3. Communication through proper channel works out effectively. But the flow of communication in the orderly form should not be insisted upon every time. At times it can be ignored and not strictly followed in order to keep the functioning of the organization smooth and effective.

4. There should be an adequate facility of promoting communication in an organization. Proper attention should be given for the effective use of words and language. Superiors should take care of using supportive attitude methods and proper behavioral needs to overcome any embarrassing situation.

Physical barrier:
Physiological Barriers to Communication
A physiological barrier to communication is the result of a sensory dysfunction, either on the part of the receiver or the sender. Speaking, hearing and seeing are fundamental parts of effective communication. For a person who is not able to speak, hear or see, certain measures must be taken to provide alternative communication options and methods and ensure communication is possible.
Mental Barriers to Communication
One key barrier to effective communication is mental. It consists of noise in the mind of the sender or receiver. Here are four examples:

The arrogance of the sender may impair the communication process. If the sender believes he knows everything there is to know about the subject being transmitted, he expects acceptance of his ideas or directions. If the receiver disagrees with the sender and so states, the sender will not be attuned to the feedback or will find it a challenge to his stated position. Real communication does not take place.

The sender may assume the receiver will respond to his message in a logical and rational manner. The receiver's priorities, problems, or assumptions may differ from the sender's. The receiver's logic may even override that of the sender. In any of these instances, the sender might judge the receiver to be incompetent or even an obstructionist. Communication will fail.

The sender may assume he is completely logical and rational - that his position is right and must prevail. This assumption may be false and no communication takes place.

The sender may have some misconceptions, self-interests, or strong emotions about a particular idea or approach, of which he is not aware. However, these traits may be readily evident to the receiver, who may think the sender is hypocritical. This communication will fail, as may all future communications between this sender and receiver.
There are a wide number of sources of noise or interference that can enter into the communication process which prevent the achievement of the desired result . Barriers to Communication can be classified into three groups :
Barriers to reception ? Environmental stimuli ? The receiver’s attitudes and values ? The receiver’s needs and expectations
Barriers to understanding : ? Language and semantic problems ? The ability of the receiver to listen and receive, especially messages which threatens his or her self concept. ? The length of the communication ? Status effects
Barriers to acceptance ? Prejudices ? Interpersonal conflicts between sender and receiver.
The following are the sources of noise or barriers to communication :
1. Physical 2. Mechanical 3. Mental 4. Cross-cultural 5. Socio-psychological
1. Physical Barriers ? Environmental Disturbances like traffic noise, loud sound, passing train etc. ? Time and Distance ? Personal Problems of health ? Poor hearing ( due to defective hearing) ? Poor presentation due to speech defects like stammering, lisping etc. ? Poor verbal skills 2. Mechanical Barriers – ? Noisy transmission (unreliable messages, inconsistency) ? The different media (machines or instruments) used for communication, very often becomes the barrier. Non-availability of proper machines or presence of defective machines. ? Wrong channels or medium
3. Mental Barriers – From the sender’s point of view ? ignorance of the language and ? confused thinking are the mental barriers.
From the receiver’s point of view ? ignorance of the language, ? limitations in ability, intelligence and understanding ? divided attention are the serious mental barriers.
? Semantic Problems occur when people use either the same word in different ways, or different words in the same way. The choice of words or language in which a sender encodes a message will influence the quality of communication. Because language is a symbolic representation of a phenomenon, room for interpretation and distortion of the meaning exists. Meaning has to be given to words and many factors affect how an individual will attribute meaning to particular words. It is important to note that no two people will attribute the exact same meaning to the same words. ? Misreading of body language, tone and other non-verbal forms of communication ? Receiver distortion: selective hearing, ignoring non-verbal cues . ? Voice control - Pitch, modulation of voice helps in making communication effective. ? Communicators thinking should be clear.
4. Cross Cultural Barriers – Effective communication requires deciphering the basic values, motives, aspirations, and assumptions that operate across geographical lines. Given some dramatic differences across cultures in approaches to such areas as time, space, and privacy, the opportunities for mis-communication while we are in cross-cultural situations are plentiful.
? Values, Attitudes and Opinions • Pre-conceived notions : We judge people before they speak by allowing our opinions and ideas of them come in the way of trying to know what the speaker is saying. • Assumptions –i.e. assuming others see situation same as you, has same feelings as you • Status effects : power struggles • Defensiveness, distorted perceptions, guilt, projection, transference, distortions from the past, negative emotions • Distrusted source, erroneous translation, value judgment, state of mind of two people.
Perceptual Biases: People attend to stimuli in the environment in very different ways. We each have shortcuts that we use to organize data. Invariably, these shortcuts introduce some biases into communication. Some of these shortcuts include stereotyping, projection, and self-fulfilling prophecies. Stereotyping is one of the most common. This is when we assume that the other person has certain characteristics based on the group to which they belong without validating that they in fact have these characteristics.
Interpersonal Relationships: How we perceive communication is affected by the past experience with the individual. Perception is also affected by the organizational relationship two people have. For example, communication from a superior may be perceived differently than that from a subordinate or peer
Overcoming barriers to communication –
? If communication is oral, it must be clear and not heavily accented. ? Words must be chosen in such a way that miscommunication is avoided. ? People should be oriented to listen with attention and read with concentration. ? If instruments are used they should be in proper working condition. ? The communicator should try to reach the audience by speaking and writing from their point of view. The ‘you’ attitude must be used on all occasions. Semantic noises must be avoided. ? All communication should try to persuade and not rush or overwhelm people. Psychological barriers can be effectively overcome through persuasion. ? Proper arrangement must be made to obtain feedback. The sooner you obtain feedback the sooner will you be able to change your mode and manner of communication and make it more effective. ? Make sure you are using the proper channel of communication whether it is through written, verbal or with visual aids.
Action to be taken to overcome barriers of effective communication –
Sender WHO : To whom should the message go ? WHY : Why am I communicating ? what are my motives ? WHAT : Decide what to communicate. Be clear about what you need to communicate. WHEN : Choose the best time for optimum reception. HOW : Use language the receiver will understand and which unambiguous. WHERE : Choose a location which will not interfere with the reception, understanding and acceptance of the message. Keep checking with the receiver.
Receiver Be fully ATTENTIVE to sender Listen ACTIVELY to the messages being sent. ASK for clarifications, reception where necessary. Keep checking with sender.
Together Realize that misunderstandings are bound to occur, and be ALERT for all cues to this effect. LISTEN, listen, listen, and listen again. TEST your understanding of the message. Share OPINIONS, feelings and perceptions generated by the message. Tips to improve Non Verbal Communication Click to see importance of Effective Communication Click to Know purpose of communication in the Organisation
Social barriers
In addition the social barrier of communication would be many factors that you can look for example they are such things as; conflict, violent and abusive situations, ability to read and write in a particular language or style and the one that I will be focusing one is violent and abusive situations this is a huge barrier to communication this Is because if you are violent towards a person they are sure not to communicate with you in any way. This is a barrier because if you need to talk to someone to share information with them and they are violent or abusive towards you, then you will not want to communicate with them and then they will feel the same way. If there was no communication passed on in this barrier then the people communication together may feel threatened by someone who is abusive. Then they will not want to communicate with each other and information could be missed or mislead. The consequences of this potential barrier would be that if you are trying to send or receive information in a conversation it will be almost impossible to converse words with each other if one part of the conversation is violent or abusive. Another consequence could be that there has to be a cause for this to be violent and abusive this may because they have had a troubled past, so from this they would have low self esteem which could of caused them to be abusive and violent. So when overcoming this social barrier first of all you have to get through to this person you can do this is many ways, to start with you would build a relationship so that this person will feel more secure in your company they also will trust you a lot more. You could also use different methods to try and get to communicate with someone who has violent and abusive people such as play games with them to get their feelings across for example play hangman and the word has to do with something they are feeling this them will help them express their feelings and may help them to communicate a lot more effectively. If they didn't want to communicate with you at that time you could always delay the time until they have calmed down. semantic barriers
Semantic BarriersMost of the difficulties in communication arise because the same word or symbol means different things to different individuals. Perhaps you remember what happened to Shiny Abraham at the 1986 Asian Games at Seoul. Despite coming first by a very wide margin in the 800 m. Race, she was disqualified and lost her gold medal for having crossed the track at the place where she should not have gone. According to her she mistook the symbol, i.e., the colour of the flag. Whereas in our country the red flag indicates danger, in South Korea white flag is used for the same purpose. Misinterpreting the white flag which had been put up at that point, she crossed the track at the wrong place and suffered a setback.Words, which are in reality symbols representing a thing, an action or a feeling, can have several meanings. As explained earlier, words which represent concrete things, e.g., car or house, tend to be understood in the same way, while abstract words like merit, effectiveness or responsibility, tend to be interpreted by different persons in different ways. Difficulty in understanding may arise even in the case of ordinary words which have different contextual meanings. Lately such difficulties are being experienced increasingly by people working in international development field. One such problem arose in interpreting the meaning of the word 'steps'. In a training programme of health workers relating to the family health in Jamaica when a question "What are some of the steps that a mother should take to make sure that her baby keeps healthy ?" was asked, it was found that there was no response to it. The trainees who were accustomed to only one meaning of the word 'steps' based on their experience, could not just make any sense of the question.Semantic difficulty may arise because of unfamiliarity with words. For example, because of a word of some foreign language of which the receiver has no knowledge. A technical word may not create such a problem - it may be beyond the ability of the receiver to understand it.In order to make it effective, a communication must be put into words which are appropriate to the environment and mental framework of the receiver. This ensures the communication to be grasped properly and implemented effectively. A very interesting example of a communication made effective by the use of words appropriate to the environment in which they were used is provided by the following incident that took place in one of the agricultural states of the USA.A proposal for raising the salaries of the faculty members of an agricultural college was under discussion. The farmers' bloc was totally against giving the raise to the college teachers - they could not see why they should pay those college teachers $5000 a year just for talking 12 to 15 hours a week Faculty representatives made no headway in their negotiations until one of them who had some farming experience, got an inspiration."Gentlemen", he told the members of the administrative body, "a college teacher is a little like a bull. It's not the amount of time he spends. It's the importance of what he does!"Semantic barrier may further be created by body language being inconsistent with the verbal communication. A manager who praises the honesty and sincerity of his or her subordinate in a sarcastic tone creates doubts in the minds of the subordinate as to the course of action he or she should adopt in a given situation in future. The same kind of barrier is created by a divergence between the verbal language and the action language of the superiors. When action and language are used jointly the actions often have more powerful influence on other's actions than words do. A management may, for example, profess its belief in being guided solely by the merit of employees while making promotions. Yet if employees observe that in actual practice promotions are made on considerations other than merit, the management's professed policy is bound to be affected by a semantic barrier - it is not likely to communicate anything, only the actions will communicate and what they communicate will be contrary to what had been said in so many words.

Semantics is related to meanings of words. To be more exact, it is related to connotative and denotative meanings of words and its study. Every word has a direct meaning called the denotative meaning. In addition to its exact or lexical meaning, words also acquire implied meanings called connotative meanings. Connotations are understood based only on an individual’s experience. If the encoder and decoder do not share the some connotative meaning for a word, miscommunication occurs. We have already seen how ‘bimonthly’ can mean two different concepts to two different people even at denotative level. Similarly, examine the word ‘cheap’ as an adjective. You will enjoy a ‘cheap holiday’ because you spend less than the real cost. Industries desire ‘cheap labour’ to reduce the over all cost of production. These connotations of cheap as an adjective are different from the connotations in expressions like “cheap popularity’ and “cheap joke”. If the receiver does not understand the connotation attributed by the sender, miscommunication takes place. But when words are used for denotations alone, not much damage will be done. To overcome the semantic barrier to communication, the communicator should choose the precise and exact word that will carry the same meaning for the receiver in the given context. The meaning of the word is related to context at the connotational level. A complimentary expression may derive a connotative derogative meaning which will ruin the communication process. If you examine the word ‘fellow’, you will find so many connotations to it. The word used with adjectives such as ‘nice’ and ‘lousy’ change the complexion of the word ‘fellow’. A ‘nice fellow’ and a lousy fellow’ are poles apart. If you call some one a ‘fellow scholar’, he is your contemporary. A ‘fellow traveller’ is simply your co-passenger on a train, but in another context he is a sympathizer or a secret member of the communist party. Fellowship simply means companionship / friendliness. However, in special contexts it can have different connotations. You can be a scholar with UGC (University Grants Commission) getting a fellowship. physiological barriers
A physiological barrier to communication is the result of a sensory dysfunction, either on the part of the receiver or the sender. Speaking, hearing and seeing are fundamental parts of effective communication. For a person who is not able to speak, hear or see, certain measures must be taken to provide alternative communication options and methods and ensure communication is possible.

Hearing Impairment * One physiological barrier to communication is a hearing impairment. Hearing disorders can result from hereditary or genetic issues, developmental abnormalities, medical conditions such as infections, or other environmental or traumatic factors. While hearing loss typically will not cause a mental developmental problem, other areas such as speech and language, social development and educational achievement are affected by the condition. All of these areas rely heavily on a person's ability to communicate with others. Auditory impairments not only delay an individual's communication skills, but also decreases the amount of effective communication possible with other people.
Speech Disorders * Speech disorders are a common physiological barrier to communication. This includes different types of disorders such as stuttering, apraxia and dysarthria. Stuttering hinders the fluency of communication with prolonged speech sounds and repetitions of parts of words or entire words.
Apraxia of speech is a condition which occurs due to damage to the speaking part of the brain. This condition results in a person losing the ability to form syllables and words with sounds. The severity of the condition depends on the severity of the brain damage.
Another motor speech disorder is dysarthria, a condition in which the muscles of the face, mouth and respiratory system are weak and not able to work at full capacity. This condition may be caused by injuries and disorders such as muscular dystrophy, a stroke, a head injury or cerebral palsy. For a person unable to speak in an understandable and clear manner, communication will quickly break down. *
Vision Impairment * Vision impairment is also a physiological barrier to communication. The level of impairment is different for every individual. Loss of vision may not result in total blindness, but in difficulty noticing details, tunnel vision, blind spots, blurring or a sensitivity to glare and bright lights. Regardless of the level of disability, vision impairment greatly limits communication for a person in many ways. A person who is vision impaired is not able to see mood suggestive facial expressions and body language, is not able to see whom they are speaking with, may not understand language which is spoken in a unclear manner, and may find understanding conversations difficult and confusing.

psychological barriers
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.
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.
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.

www.ehow.com