Barriers to Communication

Author

Michael K. Swan, Washington State University
Reviewers

Diane Jackman, Eastern Illinois University Gary Thome, Riverland Community College

Introduction
Communication plays a most important role in employer-employee relationships on farm operations. It also affects the relationships among family members on the management team. Although effective communication does not guarantee success of a farm operation, its absence usually assures problems. A communication problem may soon become a disaster or it may linger on for years. No matter how good the communication systems in an operation are, communication barriers can and do often occur. This may be caused by a number of reasons that can usually be summarized as being due to physical barriers, system design faults, or additional barriers.

Physical barriers are often due to the nature of the environment.
One natural barrier is when managers and employees are located in different buildings or on different sites of the operation. Likewise, poor or outdated equipment, particularly the failure of management to introduce new technology, may also cause problems. Employee shortages are another factor that frequently cause communication difficulties for an operation. While distractions like noise, poor lighting or an environment that is too hot or cold can all affect people’s spirits and concentration, which in turn interfere with effective communication. Not having an office and lunchroom area where employees may gather.

System design faults refer to problems with the structures or systems in place in an operation.
Examples might include an organizational structure that is unclear and therefore makes it confusing to know who you are to communicate with. Other examples could be inefficient or inappropriate information systems, a lack of supervision or training, and a lack of