Common Communication Barriers
A famous quote from John Powell is “Communication works for those who work at it.”
When we try to analyse it, it makes sense. How effective we are at giving and receiving information to the people around us, shows how effective we are at communicating. You can be a good listener but without feedback, your interpretation or understanding about the message presented to you would mean nothing to the one who sent it.
In a workplace or in a business environment, communication is really important because it is the main tool for telling someone how the work will be done in order to attain a certain goal. Even if we believe that communication is necessary and should be prioritised, there are still challenges that keep on arising that hinders or slows down an organisation to do their work effectively and efficiently.
Communication barriers are often the reason for such instances where officemate quarrels occur, late submission of reports happen, or disapproved project proposals are made. Hence, who shall we blame for such disturbances? It is important to understand as an employer or employee, the common communication barriers because this will help you utilise ways to avoid it as much as possible.
- Language Dialect – if you are working in a cross-cultural company, you are expected to work with people from different places that may or may not be as fluent in English as you. This can be hard especially if the only way you can understand each other is through the use of words.
- Technological – remote working is vital today. Sometimes it is not your colleagues fault if the technology they have is not as upgraded as yours. Moreover, it can also refer to a poor quality microphone that may affect the quality of the words you are saying if you are in a video chat meeting.
- Lack of interest – make sure that you and your team are on the same page so that you can both create a good discourse about your work. Sometimes employees are facing a difficult circumstance at home that may also affect the interest they exert at work.
