In the previous post we saw how a sender can be a barrier in the communication process. In this blog we will try to understand how the receiver of the message can be an obstacle for effective communication.
Receiver: A receiver gets the message sent by the sender. He also plays a prominent role in the whole communicaion process.
1. Skills of the receiver: The recipient of the message should possess the skills to decode the message. This usually happens when a superior uses jargons in his communication while conversing with his subordinates. I will give an example: It was a monthly review in one of the comanies and the general manager was discussing about identifying the various problems leading to low performance. He showed a chart - " They call it Pareto"- and started talking about something called 80-20 principle. He went about explaining the chart. Now it was Greek and Latin to many present in the meeting because they didn't possess the skills to interpret a Pareto Chart. So it was just another meeting without any value addition.
2. Inappropriate target for the message : The sender, before sending the message, should be doubly sure to check whether the recipient is the right person to receive the message. If the message goes to the wrong person the result may be delayed or may not even happen. To cite an example: One day before in one of my friends trainng session ( He had around four hours before the start). He had to get his system ( computer) to the training room. Usually, for shifting equipments he used to get permission from the admin and sent a mail accordingly. He didn't receive any communication from their end for almost two hours. After two hours his admin manager called him to say that shifting a system was not a job of theirs but was supposed to be done by the IT department. Now he had to run from pillar to post (of course it was after sending another mail to the IT department), with a lot of tension to actually get his job done. So if he had already known who were his target audience he wouldn't have wasted time. There would't even be a confusion.
Under the same heading... we need to understand one more thing about which I have discussed in the first post on communication. I cannot teach "Theory of relativity" to grade five students. Would they understand.. Definitely yes....That I am a specimen from a meuseum. So before I actually what is their level of understanding before I actually deliver something.
3. Problem in receiver comprehension: I will give you a typical example for this. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label.
The sales was not impressive at all. Guess why????
Because in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what's inside, since many people can't read. So nobody there wanted to by a product made out of babies......So here I (sender) intend something... but the receiver understands it the other way around.....
4. Poor Listening : Imagine you have bought a new car of your dreams and you are talking about it to your friend. But your friend of yours is thinking about his fight with his girlfriend and is in a different world altogether. Do you think justice is happening to communication. Definitely not.. Why.... One guy is not ready to listen.... while the other guy is not ready to stop talking. Hence, unless the receiver gives full attention with an intention to listen communication will be incomplete.
6. Attitudes and opinion: Have you ever had this feeling........ Why should I listen to him?? or why should I do this for him.. what's in it for me....Its not my job...... When an attitude like this develops... listening stops automatically... and the message enters only deaf ears..... So, here also the communication becomes incomplete.
When it comes to opinions... many a time when some one is arguing with us or speaking against us... we hardly listen to the other person's points... What are we waiting for...... the other person to stop talking so that you can talk...... Usually when opinions differ and both are not ready to agree with each other.... communication becomes one way ( we will discuss this elaborately later).
3. Psychological Barriers / Emotional /Perceptional Barriers
1. Emotions: How happy or sad is the receiver when the message is communicated. What does the receiver take to mean by this message. This factor has a lot of significance. Of course every factor carries its own level of importance but this is something that has a personal touch. It is very difficult to correct this factor because we are dealing with human feelings. Emotional people have a big time difficulty in facing the reality. These emotions can be caused by anything. The most common of these is the inability to balance work and life. They are not able to diffentiate between the two because of which the communication gets affected. The next cause factor for emotion can be work pressure. If an doesn't know how to handle pressure properly... proper communication will become a big time headache for him. Tension and nervousness will lead to poor communication. The next factor is Motivation. The inclination of the executive to perform his job to his utmost satisfaction. If the person is not motivated and inspired... there are high chances that he may ignore important messages and instructions or it may even fall in deaf ears. The reason is when a person is highly demotivated his inclination, most of the time, will be to just vile away the time and perform to the bare minimum to save his skin. So why should he be bothered about proper communication. I have seen executives ignoring important mailers and actioning them in the last moment.
2. Perception : Have you heard about four blind men trying to describe an elephant. One blind man who felt the elephant's trunk perceived it as a snake. There was another blind man who perceived its legs as huge pillars, One more who felt its body, thought it was a wall and the last blind man who was holding its tail perceived it as a rope. At the end of the day it is the same elephant... but the perception differs. Same is the case of communication. Based on my understanding and experience I may understand it in a manner that may be highly different from that of my senior manager.Perceiving data, information and communication depends on one's background, experience, needs, motivation etc.
I will quote an example from the corporate... Take the case of an MBR (Monthly Business Review). The data projected by Operations is the same... but there are various interpretations from various levels of management... The assistant manager has a clarfication in one aspect, while the Manager will have a different clarification on the same data. This distinction comes from their background, experience and expertise in that particular field. When the perception varies, the understanding varies and this gets projected as a barrier, as long as a proper clarification and explanation is gotten for the same.....
Under the heading of perception One very important barrier is "Assumption". Assumption is a preconceived notion about something. It is thinking that you have understood something before it is actually understood. It is also perceiving a subject through your knowledge and prior experience before actually going through the facts and figures thoroughly. Now, the important point here is... since the perception is not based on facts and figures... there are more chances that this assumption or perception is wrong... So it becomes erroneous to come to conclusion without verifying the actuals... If you had noticed the word Assume says ... "Ass"... "U"... "Me".... meaning, when you are assuming somethin, you are not only fooling yourself but also others. Below is a small story to illustrate the same.
A man goes into a drugstore and asks the pharmacist if he can give him something for the hiccups. The pharmacist promptly reaches out and slaps the man's face. "What did you do that for?" the man asks."Well, you don't have the hiccups anymore, do you?"The man says, "No, but my wife out in the car still does!"
We will see the remaining barriers of communication in the next post.............
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