Communication Barrier

Part I: Background information

Communication is a very important aspect in our day to day life. In all business organizations, communication is a key factor to its success. Everyone has to have good communication skills, both oral as well as written to make sure that communication is effective with no communication barriers or total communication breakdown. For communication to be effective, the sender of the message and the receiver should understand each other well.

I work with an Information Security firm that deals with installation of security software in companies’ systems, security analysis, penetration testing, as well as training their staff on ways to detect hackers through courses on ethical and advanced ethical hacking. The company also offers consultancy services on anything about information security. This organization has several departments which aid in making its operations successful. In this company we have the top management, and some departments which include the technical department, dealing with trainings and all installations. There is the sales and marketing department, and the finance department. These are the main departments we have. For good understanding between these departments,it is very important for all the involved parties to have good communication skills. I have in the past encountered some instances where communication has been a problem in this organization especially interdepartmental communication.

 

Part II: Definitions

• Physical barrier.

These are physical factors which affect communication. They include distance or separation between the receiver and the sender, the comfort of both the sender and the receiver, medium of communication and other factors. Physical disabilities are also part of physical barriers.

• Cultural barrier.

Cultural barriers are communication barriers caused by differences in culture. This communication barrier is always caused by the parties involved in the communication being ignorant about each other’s  culture.

In most cases people from different cultural backgrounds shy away from expressing themselves.

• Linguistic barrier.

This is type of communication barrier caused by differences in the way the speak. This type of barrier is not only caused by differences between the first languages but also by similar language spoken and written differences. For instance, American English has some differences from European English.

• Perceptual barrier.

This is a barrier caused by prejudice we form against the other party. Forming prejudice against the other party involved in the communication will always lower the effectiveness of any communication.

• Emotional barrier.

The effectiveness of our communication highly depends on our inner feelings. Our voices become assertive when we are arguing about something we have a strong feeling on. This may hinder our efficiency of passing on information.

The environment surrounding us determines how comfortable we are during communication. Some environments are very unbearable. For instance, in a very hot weather, communication will not be effective because the parties involved will not be paying full attention to what the other party is saying due to harsh environmental conditions.

Noise can be real noise from sources like other people, vehicles, airplanes and other sources.  It can also be semantic. It is also from handwriting and other factors. This type of noise causes distortion of information during transmission.

 

• Audience expectations.

These are communication barriers which occur when the message sent to the receiver by the sender is not according to the receiver’s expectations.  During communication, in most cases, people hear what they want to hear and what they expect to hear. This may lead to conclusions by the receiver which may not be true.

• The message

When we focus on other details in the message rather than the main point, this type of barrier occurs. This commonly is brought about by our educational backgrounds.

• Connotative meanings of words

Depending on people’s experiences, different people assign some words different meanings. The assignment of different meanings to words by people having different experiences is called connotative meanings of words. This may lead to inappropriate conclusions as it leads people to understand the message according to their own definitions of words.

• Lack of clarity

This a communication barrier cause by either lack of enough explanation of concepts in the message or contradicting statements within the message. This leads to confusion which makes people to not understand each other well.

 

Part III: Analysis of communication samples

Communication sample	Barrier	Analysis
In my first day at work, I was allocated some several jobs among them making calls to clients  from foreign countries. most of them were used to speaking French, although they could try and speak English. Sometimes they could forget and speak French to me.	Linguistic           Audience expectations           Competition barriers               Connotative meanings of words           Physical barrier	Due to our different backgrounds, I was finding it difficult for me to understand what the clients were saying due to our differences in language.   I expected that I would communicate with people who were using the same language as I was using but this was not the case.   When these clients spoke French to me, I would try to use Google translate to get a rough translation of some words. This caused me to struggle to pay attention to the message while trying to get a translation.   The meanings assigned to words in the Google translator might not be bearing the same meaning as what the message sender wanted me to understand.   In some cases the phone would be very unclear due to faulty network which would make me struggle in my listening.
I made a phone call to a client to inform them about a training which had been postponed but they could not hear me well as it was raining and  the phone reception was not good. The client turned up for the training only to find out that it was postponed	Noise       Physical barrier           Audience expectations	Due to noise coming from rain and wind the client could not hear what I was saying clearly.   There was a fault in the network and possibly one of our gadgets was having a problem making it very difficult to send a clear message to the client.   The client confessed that they expected me to call and confirm that the training was actually on as scheduled and did not expect us to postpone it.
In our trainings we were training people from different departments from different companies. At an Ethical Hacking training, I mentioned how hackers were able to access information from a company’s system without the owners’ consent and knowledge. At first, many people in the training could not understand this because they had no any basic background in Information Security	Faulty level of technicality               Audience expectations	Some of the people we were training were from Finance department and could not figure out how hackers could get information from the system without physically being at the organization’s premises.   The audience expected that for a person to obtain any information from the system, they were supposed to be physically present at the location of the system therefore making them understand that this could be done remotely was a huge task.
Our supervisor said that after every training we would be having a break for us to refresh and be ready for the next training session.	Audience expectation               Lack of clarity             Connotative meanings of words	We expected that after going for a training, we would have a day off from work but the supervisor meant that we would be having short breaks of up to an hour to allow us and the trainees to refresh.   The supervisor did not explain well how the breaks would be. This confused us and we concluded that we would be having a day off which was not the case.   The word break had other meaning not what we thought it meant. The supervisor meant that we would have short breaks in between the training sessions while we thought he meant that we shall be free the day after a training.
My colleague called a client to inform him that a date for the postponed training was set. Unfortunately, it was late in the evening and the client was driving home from work and they could not communicate well.	Competition barrier         Noise barrier	The client was struggling to balance between driving keenly and listening to my colleague which was difficult.   On the road, there was noise from the vehicle and other vehicles which made it difficult for the client to pay total concentration to the information from my colleague.
The computer I was given to work with was previously being used by another person. The supervisor told me to clean it before I could start using it. I started to wipe it only to learn that the supervisor meant that I delete all unnecessary files and check if it was infected with viruses.	Connotative meanings of words               Audience expectations	I thought that I was expected to wipe the computer but the supervisor required me to delete all the unnecessary data in the computer to ensure that it had enough working space for me.     I expected that I was being told to wipe the computer using a cloth which was not the case.

Table 1

Part IV: Organization communication ranking

I would give a ranking of eighty percent for the effectiveness of communication in my workplace.

Based on my experiences in the organization, my colleagues and I communicate effectively and generally the organization values very effective communication.

The only barriers we face are differences in language which sometimes make us face difficulties in getting the real message which the clients want to send to us. As a result, we try to ask as many questions as possible to understand what the clients need.

Some other times we use phones whose reception is not good which makes communication very difficult. Noise from outside sources such as vehicles make communication to be a problem.

Generally, the level of effectiveness of communication in my workplace is good.

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