How to Reduce the Barriers to Effective Communication

Noise Barriers – To overcome the noise barrier, you must discover the source of the interference. The noise barrier can’t always be overcome but the awareness of its existence by the sender of the message can help improve the communication flow. When someone is speaking, possibly the worst thing that could be in the way is background noise. For example when you are in a busy office space, there is a high chance that there will be noise in the background because of the other employees working. A way to reduce the impact of background could be holding the conversation in a quiet place, like a personal office or meeting space.

Distractions – You should remove all distractions when communicating. In the age of technology, devices that are meant for communication, such as mobile phones, can usually be a distraction. You should try to remove the distraction from the presence of communication so that the attention can be full directed appropriately. When listening, you should try to listen to understand what is being said instead of listening to the words, this way you can actual ingest what the information is.

Lack of Concentration – If you lose your concentration, you lose track of everything else, this is especially a problem in organisations as you will have specific deadlines to keep track of. This could be solved by preparing for any speeches or presentations that are needed to be given, you need to know what you have to say to an extent and keep eye contact on your audience to stop any other distractions. To reduce the impact of your audience losing concentration, you could interact with the audience with things such as asking questions frequently.

Language Barriers – To try and reduce the impact of the language barrier would be to learn the language that the person is speaking to you in. This may work but if you learn the basic communication skills it should help you in communication to that person. You could also have a translator, either digitally or a person who knows your language and the other persons language so you can relay information from one person to the next and make a basic chain.

Emotional Barriers – Overcoming emotional barriers is a never normally a simple process however a successful journey through these emotional barriers often takes time a patience. When experiencing emotional barriers, you should seek for help from others and talk about it with others as well. When communicating with people, you should always give them patience and emotional support through their barrier.

The Use of Jargon – Jargon can be a serious communication problem; some people see it as a form of technical knowledge that can prevent employees from knowing crucial knowledge. There are many ways to simplify jargon, and ways to find out what things mean. You can use program tools such as a thesaurus which searches for synonyms for words. If you are the speaker and you are using jargon, you should make sure that you explain what you mean and try to simplify what you are saying depending on the types of people in the audience listening to you or attending your presentation.

Different Viewpoints and Perceptions – Not everyone will agree with what you have to say, but you have to have acknowledgement of others opinions. To overcome this barrier, it is best to let everyone express and share their views and let everyone engaged choose what is best for the given situation such as in a meeting about introducing a new step in training. This prevents any misunderstandings and lets everyone say how they feel and why they feel a certain way.

Disabilities – To overcome this barrier, we need to make the first move to interact and strike up a conversation with the disabled to make them feel welcome. When doing a presentation to some disabled people we need to change the presentation and PowerPoint to suit their needs, if that is the colour scheme or the font or size, so that they can take in the information and feel interested in what you are talking about.