Barriers of Communication: Types of barriers – Technological – Socio-Psychological barriers – Overcoming barriers, Types of listening.

1. BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
UNIT -4
BARRIERS OF COMMUNICATION
Barriers to Effective Communication in Business
Planning, preparation and practice of communication will be incomplete and unsuccessful
unless one identifies and understands the barriers to effective communication. These
barriers are physical, sociological and psychological obstacles that interfere with the
planning, organization, transmission and understanding of the message.
Types of Barriers to Effective Communication
Some of the most important barriers to effective communication in business are explained
below.
Language Barrier
 Lack of common language: Language uses oral or written symbols to transmit
meanings from one person to another. It is not possible for them to communicate with each
other unless they know some common language, which is properly, understood by both of
them.
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2. For example An English speaking person and a German speaking person will not be able
to communicate without a good knowledge of each other’s language. If both of them know
a common language, say French their knowledge of French word, phrases, clauses and
sentence-structure should be adequate to express their thoughts and feelings.
 Semantic Barrier: Words are said to have no meaning but they represent arbitrary
meaning associated with it. A word may have a variety of meanings and the meaning
attributed to a word by the communicator may not be the same as that of the receiver’s
attributed meanings of that word. A word can have different meaning to different people at
different occasions. Sometimes, the receiver wrongly enters the intended meaning of the
sender’s word by attributing negative meaning to it.
 Poor vocabulary: Poor vocabulary makes our message more difficult and less
effective. The words have different connotative and denotative meanings. The
communicator needs to know them clearly in order to use them with clarity and precision.
Words stand not only for their meanings but they are also charged with action and
emotions. Poor vocabulary does not allow the communicator to write or speak effectively.
If does not allow the receiver to understand the message clearly.
 Poor grammar and punctuation: Poor knowledge of grammar and punctuation is a
barrier to verbal communication. A good vocabulary is useless unless the communicator
acquires the knowledge of how to use it in a sentence. More than ever before, the people
involved in written and oral communication today must have superior grammar skills
because an understanding of grammatical structures provide excellent basis for effective
writing, speaking, listening and reading skills. .
Physical Barriers
 Noise: It interferes with the transmission of the signals. It also refers to the
‘unwanted’ signals of messages, which interferes and disturb the reception of the wanted
signals. This disturbance is usually in the form of sounds, but it need not be always the
sounds. It can be in visual, audio-visual, written, physical or psychological form also
 Time: The frequency of communication encounters affects the human relationships
and the intensity of human relations is affected by the amount of time that passes between
these encounters. If the employee does not communicate with their superiors for a long
time, or if husband and wife stay away from each other for a ling time, it may create a

3. BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
communication gap between them, which may affect their relationship. Time can act as a
barrier to communication in some other ways also
 Distance:. Distance between the workbenches in the offices or in the modern
production departments and half partitions between them are the distance barriers, which
severely limit the communication among the employees. By minimizing the physical
distance down to the personal distance that ranges from 1.5 to 4 feet. The boss can
minimize the status difference between himself and his employees. A friend or a colleague
who ceases to maintain the personal distance, i.e. 1.5 to 4feet, and keeps himself always
beyond the distances of 12 to 25 feet is a friend who keeps communication gap.
 Age: The age, maturity, educational background and the eras in which a person grows
up make a generation, which inevitably comes in the way of human communication. The
generation gap becomes obvious in their use of vocabulary and style of speeches and the
values of life to which they stick or adhere
 Sex: Men and women communicate with one another according to their sex. When
they work together in a group, men tend to be more assertive, acquisitive, self -confidence
and aggressive than the women. This may be because a five year boy is encouraged to ‘hit
back’ by his father, but the boy’s sister is told that girls ‘don’t fight’. Thus, sex stands as a
barrier to a direct, honest and appropriate expression of a female’s thoughts, opinions and
beliefs.
 Social-psychological Barriers
 Status barrier: Statue is a position or social rank of a person in a group. It depends
on the person’s abilities, amount of pay, job-skills, seniority; type of work assigned, age,
etc. statue reflects the degree of power, authority, importance and responsibility placed on
an individual by the other people in the society. The people at the lower status are usually
afraid of communication unpleasant and unfavorable information to the high-status people.
They get scared of entering into the air-conditioned cabins with runs on the floor and a
number of telephones on the table
 Attitudes and values: The attitudes serve the personal needs of the people. They
provide need satisfaction to the individuals. When the message is unfavourable to the
receiver, he cannot be easily persuaded by it. The people in terms of their attitudes and
values interpret the message. Their attitudes and values are different not merely because
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4. they are physically different but also because they have different backgrounds. They deal
with the individuals and events according to their attitudes and assumptions. Their personal
attitudes, values and opinions are the barriers to an effective communication.
 Different perception of reality: Francis Bacon has said, ‘Man prefers to believe what
he prefers to be true’. The individual experiences and their interpretations are never
identical because their perceptions are different. If two friends see a movie together, their
interpretation, of the events and the characters in it will certainly be different. The
communication barrier arises as a result of different selective perceptions of the same
object or idea by two or more people. Our physical senses like hearing, sight, taste, touch
and smell are our contacts with the physical world.
 Abstracting: We use language to communicate our experiences and feelings, but we
cannot communicate every detail of it. We cannot communicate every detail of our
experience to others. Also, we focus our attention on some details and do not bother about
the rest
 Closed-Mindedness: A person may close his mind to communicate receptions, if he
considers himself to be a person who knows ‘all’ about a particular subject. It is very
difficult to communicate with a man who has deeply rooted prejudiced mind. Such a man
is not prepared to receive any message on a subject about which he assumes to know
everything. His mind is closed to new ideas, facts and suggestions
 Distortion, filtering and editing: When a message is transmitted through
translations, interpretations, explanations and simplifications, some part of it gets distorted
or lost. The accuracy of the message is lost and the transmission becomes imperfect as the
message goes through the filters of translations and simplifications. The upward
communication also tends to be distorted and filtered. The negative effects of the informal
channel like grapevine are due to distortions and filtering.
 Bad listening: Bad listening is one of the major communication problems.
Misunderstanding and conflicts can be reduced if people would listen the message with
enough attention. Most people do not listen very well due to various distractions, emotions,
excitement, indifference, aggressiveness and wandering attention. One of the major
reasons for bad listening is an individual’s continual thinking about his own problems and
worries. The poor listeners always feel that the thought in his mind is more interesting than
what the speaker is saying.

5. BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
 For example A college student involves himself in thinking about his girl friend
rather than listening to the lecture of his professor. Bad listening can also be due to some
strong reason for worrying. An employee may get engrossed in worrying about the
sickness of his daughter rather than listening to the instructions given by his manager.
 Emotions: Negative emotions are obstacles in the communication. Emotions are our
feelings about the world around us. Usually, the positive emotions such as joy, love or
affection do not interfere with communication, but the negative emotions act as strong
barriers to effective communication. Emotionally excited communicator is unable to
organize his message properly.
 Resistance to change: If we receive a message, which proposes a new idea, we tend
to be inattentive to it. The new idea is rejected consciously or sometimes unconsciously if
it conflicts with our beliefs, morals, values, attitudes and opinions of the receiver. The
average adult human mind ignores the new idea, especially when he feels insecurity and
uncertainty about its aftermath.
Types of listening
Here are six types of listening, starting with basic discrimination of sounds and ending in
deep communication.
Discriminative listening
Discriminative listening is the most basic type of listening, whereby the difference between
difference sounds is identified. If you cannot hear differences, then you cannot make sense of
the meaning that is expressed by such differences. We learn to discriminate between sounds
within our own language early, and later are unable to discriminate between the phonemes of
other languages. This is one reason why a person from one country finds it difficult to speak
another language perfectly, as they are unable distinguish the subtle sounds that are required
in that language.
 Likewise, a person who cannot hear the subtleties of emotional variation in another
person’s voice will be less likely to be able to discern the emotions the other person is
experiencing.
Biased listening
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6. Biased listening happens when the person hears only what they want to hear, typically
misinterpreting what the other person says based on the stereotypes and other biases
that they have. Such biased listening is often very evaluative in nature.
Evaluative listening
In evaluative listening, or critical listening, we make judgments about what the other
person is saying. We seek to assess the truth of what is being said. We also judge
what they say against our values, assessing them as good or bad, worthy or unworthy.
 Evaluative listening is particularly pertinent when the other person is trying to
persuade us, perhaps to change our behavior and maybe even to change our beliefs.
Within this, we also discriminate between subtleties of language and comprehend the
inner meaning of what is said. Typically also we weigh up the pros and cons of an
argument, determining whether it makes sense logically as well as whether it is
helpful to us.
 Evaluative listening is also called critical, judgmental or interpretive listening.
Appreciative listening
 In appreciative listening, we seek certain information which will appreciate, for
example that which helps meet our needs and goals. We use appreciative listening
when we are listening to good music, poetry or maybe even the stirring words of a
great leader.
Sympathetic listening
 In sympathetic listening we care about the other person and show this concern in the
way we pay close attention and express our sorrow for their ills and happiness at their
joys.
Empathetic listening
 When we listen empathetically, we go beyond sympathy to seek a truer understand
how others are feeling. This requires excellent discrimination and close attention to

7. BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
the nuances of emotional signals. When we are being truly empathetic, we actually
feel what they are feeling.
 In order to get others to expose these deep parts of themselves to us, we also need to
demonstrate our empathy in our demeanor towards them, asking sensitively and in a
way that encourages self-disclosure.
Therapeutic listening
 In therapeutic listening, the listener has a purpose of not only empathizing with the
speaker but also to use this deep connection in order to help the speaker understand,
change or develop in some way. This not only happens when you go to see a therapist
but also in many social situations, where friends and family seek to both diagnose
problems from listening and also to help the speaker cure themselves, perhaps by
some cathartic process. This also happens in work situations, where managers, HR
people, trainers and coaches seek to help employees learn and develop.
Relationship listening
 Sometimes the most important factor in listening is in order to develop or sustain a
relationship. This is why lovers talk for hours and attend closely to what each other
has to say when the same words from someone else would seem to be rather boring.
 Relationship listening is also important in areas such as negotiation and sales, where it
is helpful if the other person likes you and trusts you.
False listening
 False listening occurs where a person is pretending to listen but is not hearing
anything that is being said. They may nod, smile and grunt in all the right places, but
do not actually take in anything that is said. This is a skill that may be finely honed by
people who do a lot of inconsequential listening, such as politicians and royalty.
Initial listening
 Sometimes when we listen we hear the first few words and then start to think about
what we want to say in return. We then look for a point at which we can interrupt. We
are also not listening then as we are spending more time rehearsing what we are going
to say about their initial point.
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8. Selective listening
 Selective listening involves listening for particular things and ignoring others. We
thus hear what we want to hear and pay little attention to ‘extraneous’ detail. Partial
listening
 Partial listening is what most of us do most of the time. We listen to the other person
with the best of intent and then become distracted, either by stray thoughts or by
something that the other person has said
Full listening
 Full listening happens where the listener pays close and careful attention to what is
being said, seeking carefully to understand the full content that the speaker is seeking
to put across.
 This may be very active form of listening, with pauses for summaries and testing that
understanding is complete. By the end of the conversation, the listener and the
speaker will probably agree that the listener has fully understood what was said.
 Full listening takes much more effort than partial listening, as it requires close
concentration, possibly for a protracted period. It also requires skills of understanding
and summary.
Deep listening
 In deep listening, you listen between the lines of what is said, hearing the emotion,
watching the body language, detecting needs and goals, identifying preferences and
biases, perceiving beliefs and values, and so on.

9. BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Name Description
Active listening
Listening in a way that demonstrates interest and
encourages continued speaking.
Appreciative
listening
Looking for ways to accept and appreciate the other
person through what they say. Seeking opportunity to
praise.
Alternatively listening to something for pleasure, such as
to music.
Attentive listening Listening obviously and carefully, showing attention.
Biased listening Listening through the filter of personal bias.
Casual listening
Listening without obviously showing attention. Actual
attention may vary a lot.
Comprehension
listening
Listening to understand. Seeking meaning (but little
more).
Content listening
Listening to understand. Seeking meaning (but little
more).
Critical listening
Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass
judgment on what someone else says.
Deep listening
Seeking to understand the person, their personality and
their real and unspoken meanings and motivators.
Dialogic listening
Finding meaning through conversational exchange, asking
for clarity and testing understanding.
Discriminative
listening
Listening for something specific but nothing else (eg. a
baby crying).
Empathetic
listening
Seeking to understand what the other person is feeling.
Demonstrating this empathy.
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10. Evaluative
listening
Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass
judgment on what someone else says.
False listening
Pretending to listen but actually spending more time
thinking.
Full listening Listening to understand. Seeking meaning.
High-integrity
listening
Listening from a position of integrity and concern.
Inactive listening
Pretending to listen but actually spending more time
thinking.
Informative
listening
Listening to understand. Seeking meaning (but little
more).
Initial listening
Listening at first then thinking about response and looking
to interrupt.
Judgmental
listening
Listening in order to evaluate, criticize or otherwise pass
judgment on what someone else says.
Partial listening
Listening most of the time but also spending some time
day-dreaming or thinking of a response.
Reflective listening
Listening, then reflecting back to the other person what
they have said.
Relationship
listening
Listening in order to support and develop a relationship
with the other person.
Sympathetic
listening
Listening with concern for the well-being of the other
person.
Therapeutic
listening
Seeking to understand what the other person is feeling.
Demonstrating this empathy.
Total listening Paying very close attention in active listening to what is

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said and the deeper meaning found through how it is said.
Whole-person
listening
Seeking to understand the person, their personality and
their real and unspoken meanings and motivators.
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