R does not put personal pre-occupation aside

The Client may build up a barrier if he or she

Thought it is rather long, this list is far from being exhaustive. Yet it provides the common causes of communication failure produced by the sender. The more detailed this list is, the more accurate strategies to overcome these communication barriers you will be able to design.

R is not clear and logical in presentation.

Similarly to the sender of the message the Client may put up a barrier to communication when receiving the message (e.g. if unexpected channel is used); when decoding the message (e.g. if the speech is incoherent); when understanding the message (e.g. if the context is incomprehensible); or when acting on the message (e.g. if resources for his activity are undetermined).

r does not concentrate on the message;

r is not clear, logical or concise in his/her reply;

r is indifferent to whether the sender’s needs are satisfied or not;

r shows personal hostility to the sender;

r is a poor listener or reader;

r has not acquired the previous knowledge of the topic which may reasonably be expected;

r has not acquired the skill in using the channel or medium of expression;

r replies by giving too much detail too quickly;

In any extended communication, in which there are frequent changes of the sender – receiver roles, both parties have a change to commit a fault. Let us now see what the experts’ recommendations are as to how to overcome the barriers in communication.

Overcoming Barriers: Advice to the Sender

The classical Indian parable about the blind and the elephant illustrates very well the specific features of an individual’s perception of the world:

Three blind men happen to be near the elephant for the first time in their life. One of them catches the elephant by the tail and says, ‘It means that the elephant is as thin as a cord.’ The second man touches the elephant’s skin and says, ‘You are not right, the elephant is flat and rough like a wall.’ The third man says, touching the elephant’s leg, ‘Nothing of the kind! It is tall and round like a trunk.’

The arguing blind men cannot come to agreement as to how the elephant looks. Every of them perceived only one part of the animal’s body; that is why they cannot agree on the appearance of the elephant as a whole. The moral of the story for professional communicators is as follows: everybody’s perception of the world is incomplete; try to make it complete using the experience of the other people.

The main is the wish to understand the partner, to listen so that to hear. An effective strategy of deeper and more accurate understanding of the client is called empathy which implies our ability to place ourselves in the shoes of other people and try to understand the world from their point of view, to feel their state and position and try to take them into account in our behaviour. Empathy is the state of concernment, openness and trust rather than just a communication technique. One of the simplest ways to train empathy is an attempt to tune oneself to the partner, mirroring technique, when one tries to copy the partner’s posture, his tempo of speech, gestures.

In business setting personal pre-occupation and feelings often have to be ignored and the employees in the workplace are required to put their emotions and problems aside and to get on with the matter in hand. Yet when pressed to ignore the receiver’s personal feelings and problems in communication one should be aware that he risks worsening an already tough situation by causing a break and having to mend it later, if practicable.

Generally speaking the experts’ ideas as to how one can overcome communication barriers effectively boil down to three main recommendations. The sender should

r consider the client and his needs;

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11