OVER COMING COMMUNICATION BARRIERS BETWEEN PEOPLE

• When you send a message, you intend to

communicate meaning, but the message itself

doesn’t contain meaning. To understand one

another, you and your receiver must share similar

meanings for words, gestures, tone of voice and other symbols

• 1. Differences in perception

• 2. In correct filtering

• 3. Language problems

• 4. Poor listening

• 5. Differing emotional states

• 6. Differing back grounds

• 7. A Distracting environment

1.DIFFERENCES IN PEOPLE

• PERCEPTIONS ARE UNIQUE

• MENTAL IMAGES WILL NOT BE IDENTICAL

• AS SENDER: SELECTIVE PERCEPTION

• AS RECEIVER: INCLINED TO DISTORT THE INFORMATION

2.IN CORRECT FILTERING

• FILTERING IS SCREENING A MESSAGE

• ELIMINATE THE NUMBER OF INTERMEDIARIES

• CONDENSE THE MESSAGE

3.LANGUAGE PROBLEMS

• CHOOSE SPECIFIC AND ACCURATE WORDS

• USE WORDS YOUR CLIENTS WILL UNDERSTAND

• LANGUGE SHOULD BE DESCRIPTIVE RATHER THAN EVALUATING

4.POOR LISTENING

• LACK OF ATTENTION

• WANDERING MINDS

• PARAPHRASE WHAT YOU HAVE UNDERSTOOD

• VISUALISE THE SITUATION

• RESIST JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS

5.DIFFERING EMOTIONAL STATES

• NATURE OF INTERACTION BETWEEN SENDER AND RECEIVER

• BE ALERT TO YOUR FEELINGS

6.DIFFERING BACK GROUNDS

• Communication barriers (age, education ,gender, social status, economic position, cultural back ground, political belief, religion etc..)

• Avoid assumptions

STEPHEN COVEY ON COMMUNICATION

• Seek first to understand ,then to be understood

• Levels of listening (ignoring, pretending, selective, attentive and empathetic listening)

• Autobiographical responses (advising, probing, interpreting and evaluating)

7.A distracting environment

• Your voice not being strong• Too many others talking in the room at the same time• Too many phone calls coming in• Interruptions by superiors,colleagues• Client’s mind full of other pressing matters• They are supposed to be somewhere else at that moment• The room is very hot

Number of distractions are to be reduced.

TO OVERCOME BARRIERS…

• Be self-aware

• Listen actively

• Make information readily available

• Avoid un-necessary secrecy