Barriers to effective communication
Ellis Griffin
Barriers
Barriers to communication are problems that can reduce the efficiency or prevent communication. For example if you need to send an email to someone and the WiFi is down that is a barrier to communication.
Barriers to general communication
A major barrier to general communication could be physical disability from the audience for example people who are blind or deaf. Other barriers to general communication could be language barriers or cultural differences. For example if English isn't someone's first language they might not understand fast paced speech and possibly not be able to read or write in that language. This creates a massive barrier especially if talking to a group of people with the same barrier as some might understand but some do not.
Overcoming barriers to general communication
To overcome barriers to communication you must compensate for whatever the barrier may be weather that be using goggle translate in order to understand text in another language or be able to talk to a person who might have English as a second language. A way of also being able to easily communicate with some one who might not be confident in the English language, for example people who have it as a second language, might be to speak slowly and clearly in order for them to best understand what you are trying to say to them.
Barriers to interpersonal communication
The main barriers to interpersonal communication are pretty straightforward they're usually actual physical barriers or great distance. The main problem with barriers to interpersonal communication is that sometimes there is never actually a solution so someone has to change their method of communication to get their point across. If you were to work in a very big building with multiple floors this can be a barrier if you have to talk to someone on the top floor and you are on the bottom. Likewise if your company is split up into multiple buildings.
Interpersonal communication barriers are usually the most common of barriers out of the three.
Overcoming barriers to interpersonal communication
Good ways to overcome barriers to interpersonal communication is to use the programmes such as Skype and Face time as to still be able to read body language and tone of voice without having to travel. This would help massively if you had the problem of your workplace being in a big building or spread out over multiple. Another way of overcoming barriers to interpersonal communication would be to use a mobile phone and or use programmes such as Google drive. This programme allows multiple users to edit the same document at the same time. This linked with a Skype call could be a very affective method of dealing with a long distance barrier in a business environment.
Barriers to written communication
Barriers for written communication are spelling, punctuation and grammar. These can make it so that the reader has a very hard time reading the text and can also interoperate what you say differently then what you meant. Poor spelling, punctuation and grammar also looks very un-professional. Another barrier would be if English wasn't your first language you might not understand certain English language concepts. This can also have a knock on effect, if you were applying for a job and your CV was full of grammatical errors, you might not get a job.
Overcoming barriers to written communication
This barrier can be avoided in multiple ways, one being to proofread after every paragraph to make sure that you have not missed any full stops, spelling mistakes etc. There are several different programmes you can use to help overcome this barrier one being spell check for windows. This programme automatically tells you when you have a spelling and or grammatical error. A way to overcome a language barrier would be to use Google translate, this also shows correct grammar and punctuation.