Identify the main barriers to interpersonal communication and possible means of overcoming them. Provide examples to illustrate your answer.

Interpersonal communication is a method of sending symbols that have their own meanings from one individual to another. We use communication to influence others perceptions and behaviours but we also use communication to gain knowledge, express our emotions and to synchronize activities (French et al, 2008).
Interpersonal communication has several key elements; these key elements create a process. The information source the individual that wants to communicate with the receiver. The message is then encoded by the receiver they look at the how the message was sent as this can affect the messages structure. The method used to send the message is called the channel; these are expected to change, so that each individual message is received effectively. The receiver who obtains the message may then decode the message; this involves deciphering the message to gain its meaning. The receiver can sometimes miss interpret the message, feedback allows the receiver to return their opinions on the original message and can show the information source if they have miss interpreted their message. Disruptions in the message are known as noise, this can be anything that interrupts the receiver translating the message from the sender.
Noise can make communication ineffective as the anticipated meaning of the message from the sender and the recognised meaning made by the receiver do not equal. Noise can be any kind of distraction that takes attention away from the senders’ message. Physical distractions are a one of the more common noises. Physical distractions vary from reading an email whilst on an important phone call to things that are outside of an individual’s control such as noise traffic noise from outside that could make hearing a message difficult. Open plan offices that have removed the barriers of communication to make it more effective to have impromptu communication; however open plan offices have also been criticised. “In a recent national survey conducted by the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), more than 70 percent of respondents indicated that their productivity would improve if their workplace were less noisy. A similar ASDI survey of corporate executives indicated that only 19 percent were conscious of any sort of noise problem (Young 1999)” (J Mardex). The three main contributors to noise levels are colleagues, computers and other office equipment (J Mardex). This highlights the fact that workers in an open plan office suffer with more noise distractions than executives that are in separated offices. How can the problem of noise pollution be solved without comprising the benefits that open plan offices bring? To reduce noise in the office they could move the equipment that is the nosiest to a separate area where no one works or limit the time these pieces of equipment are used or upgrading to better, this would ease the noise levels in the open plan office.

Effective communication is made difficult by cultural differences causing problems in the communication process between the sender and receiver. It is known that culture does differ in different countries and even in different regions there may be cultural differences. If communicating with an individual of a different culture than one’s own it is important to make sure that the message you are sending them is clear and concise so that it can be easily interrupted for all users of the information. An example of a cultural difference between would be “when negotiating in Western countries, the objective is to work toward a target of mutual understanding and agreement and 'shake-hands' when that agreement is reached - a cultural signal of the end of negotiations and the start of 'working together'. In Middle Eastern countries much negotiation takes place leading into the 'agreement', signified by shaking hands. However, the deal is not complete in the Middle Eastern culture. In fact, it is a cultural sign that 'serious' negotiations are just beginning. (Geert Hofstede)”. This example would be classified as noise because of the message in this case the handshake has a different meaning to the receiver and the informer. If people are aware that the message means something different to the receiver they can the change their message to make it clearer.
An apparent problem in communication is language barriers. Hospitals commonly have language barrier problems, an article on the BBC News website shows an example of this, David Nunn a surgeon had to end an operation because he felt the foreign nurses’ that were working were unable to understand the directions he was giving them (BBC News). This example of ineffective communication shows that despite the fact that these nurses are well-trained and committed to their job they or the surgeon were unable to communicate effectively with one another. An incident of poor communication could lead to a patient being misdiagnosed or worse. They could try a resolve this by making sure foreign nurses meet a certain criteria for their English speaking and writing.
American hospitals have problems with communication between non-English speaking patients and the medical staff, regardless of an apparent need for interpreters they are frequently not used and when they are used they lack formal training in the skill (Carrasquillo et al). They believe the problem was caused by high levels of immigration, the immigrants were “able to move into established ethnic communities” (Elderkin-Thompson et al) this impacts on how they pick up the new culture and the new language. “The largest group of immigrants comes from Mexico and this group accounts for 10 percent of the total US population” (Elderkin-Thompson et al). “Immigrants rate language and cultural differences as their biggest barriers to receiving health care” (Elderkin-Thompson et al). They have been using “nurse-interrupters” (Elderkin-Thompson et al) to try and overcoming the rising number of non-English speaking patients. The nurses are bilingual and English is often not their mother tongue, in addition they are often aware of the culture of the patients.
Noise can also take the form of perception and perceptual selection processes; this is how we are perceived by others and our own perceptions. The way to reduce this barrier is to improve our understanding of others and improve our own self-awareness. We see semantics the study of words and their meanings as a barrier to communication because words can be used wrongly and can have different meanings to different people. To overcome the problem of semantics in business staff should choose appropriate language to the receiver of the message. Channel selection, it is important to choose the right method to send your message so that it is effective an example of this would be where Accident Group sacked 2,400 people and many of these were by text message (French et al) was this the appropriate method to use, I think that Accident Group should have used face-to-face communication. Information overload is where employees particularly managers receive too much information, a study has estimated that managers spend up to 80 percent of every day communicating (Luthans and Larsen, 1986) (Dawn Kelly).
To conclude the most prevalent barriers to interpersonal communication I believe are physical distractions, culture and language barriers. I believe this because they are the hardest to avoid and will sometimes be inevitable. However there are solutions to the problems to ease the barriers such as using better equipment to reduce noise in the office or moving them to a different area of the office, using translators to help with language barriers, researching countries culture before doing business with them to gain better understanding. However the solutions to the problems are likely to be expensive and timely. The company would need to look at the opportunity cost of resolving the issues or leaving the situation as it is.

Reference List

BBC News. (2002, 07 22). Language barrier halts operation. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from BBC: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2143680.stm
Carrasquillo, o. O. (1999). Impact of language barriers on patient statisfaction in an emergency department. 14 (2), 82-87.
French, R. R. (2008). Organizational Behaviour. Weat Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Hofstede, G. (n.d.). Retrieved March 09, 2009, from Geert Hofstede: www,geert-hofstede.com
Kelly, D. (2000). Using vision to improve organisational communication. Leadership and Organisation development , 21 (2).
Mardex, J. (2004). Auditor, Visual and physical distractions in the workplace .
Thompson, E. C. (2001). hen nurse double as interpurters: a study of spanish=speaking patients in a US primary care Virgina. 52 (9), 1343-1358.