Business Communication: Barriers, Causes, and Solutions Report

This report examines the crucial role of business communication in conveying organizational goals and strategies, as well as facilitating the exchange of ideas and knowledge. It highlights the fundamental communication process, including encoding, decoding, and feedback, while also emphasizing the presence of communication barriers. The report identifies and analyzes four primary categories of barriers: semantic, psychological, organizational, and personal. Semantic barriers arise from the misuse or misinterpretation of words, signs, and body language. Psychological barriers stem from the receiver's emotions, leading to misinterpretations. Organizational barriers are caused by structural ambiguities and unclear policies. Personal barriers relate to the attitudes and relationships between individuals within the organization. The report concludes by suggesting strategies to overcome these barriers, such as providing communication skills training, clarifying policies, fostering trust, and encouraging open dialogue to enhance organizational effectiveness.

Summary
Business communication is the process through which an organisation informs its employees
about the goals and strategies. It also involves the sharing of ideas and knowledge within an
organisation. Business communication follows the simple communication process. A sender
encodes a message and sends it to receiver who decoders the message and sends feedback.
However, there are certain elements which distort communication process. These are known as
communication barriers.
The communication barriers in business are broadly classified into four areas. The first is
semantic barrier. This barrier occurs when words are wrongly used or interpreted. Signs, gestures
and body language misinterpretation can also lead to this barrier. Use of ambiguous words and
words with different meanings can also lead to this barrier
Another barrier is psychological barrier where emotions of the receiver make him give different
meaning to words and he misinterprets the message leading to error in conduct of business.
Another barrier is organisational barrier where organisational structure causes ambiguity or lack
of understanding. Additionally various rules and regulations confuse the workers leading to
ineffective communication
Barrier arising out of personal nature is another communication barrier. For example, a certain
manager may not have faith in his subordinate or a subordinate may be afraid of his superiors.
This leads to hindrance to proper communication.
If the firm intends to work effectively then it has to remove these barriers. For this purpose the
firm should impart communication skills training to its employees. Additionally, structure and
policies should be clear. Also fear and distrust should be removed through transparency and
inculcation of trust. Discussion and dialogue should be encouraged which will discrete barriers
and improve organisational effectiveness.