Discuss and choose as a Learning Team the most important barrier that you think creates a communication challenge within groups and teams as highlighted in the “Barriers to Effective Communication” section in Ch. 11 of Organizational Behavior. Why did your team choose this particular barrier and how does it create a communication challenge? Provide real-life examples you may have experienced regarding this particular barrier. Prepare a 350- to 1 050-word paper detailing the findings of your discussion. Communication Barriers Chapter 11 – quoted Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind “Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating.” (Stephen P. Robbins 2013) Joel summed up communication in one phrase. If the audience does not understand what is being articulated then the communication has failed to deliver the message properly. Communication’s channels continue to expand. It is important to be extremely clear precise and deliberate in the words and tone of delivery to prevent misinterpretation and to create a communication barrier between the sender and receiver. The most common communication barriers are filtering selective perception information overload emotions language silence communication apprehension and lying. (Stephen P. Robbins 2013). Reference: Robbins S. & Judge T. (2013). Organizational behavior(15th ed.). Upper Saddle River N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall. I’m so glad you posted this. You stated from the book that “constantly talking isn’t communicating. You also stated it is important to be extremely clear precise and deliberate in the words and tone of delivery. I feel that in many electronic communications there is gap or even a stop of communication or understanding from this. I feel the reason is that people like myself and Stephanie stated earlier misinterpret the meaning or do not even understand it all together. It was a great quote from Bill Gates that says “I’m a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they’re interested in.” From this quote I take that there should be a freedom of any employee that wants to take his or her “employed” freedom in their hands. What do you think? I agree with you Jim. A few ways to avoid communication barriers that develop in the workplace is to actively communicate with employees and colleagues to ensure that assignments are understood instructions are detailed and tasks can be accomplished in a timely manner. An effective communication can help avoid unnecessary delays and unproductive work activity of supervisors and those who are subordinate. Language is another communication barrier. Every business and organization now operates as part of the global economy. As it becomes easier to travel and immigrate to other countries language differences are creating a vast barrier within every sector. The difficulties can stem from a difference in culture perceptions emotions personalities and a lack of active listening. Adeline this is a great barrier that I think many businesses are dealing with at this time. When I worked at State Farm they had a presentation on the Hmong culture. We got to here about differences in the hierarchy of their family and how decisions are made. It was extremely helpful to have this open dialogue to help me better interact with my colleagues and my customers. Iagree with you about language being a communication barrier. I have a good friend of mine that is starting his elder home business. He is starting it in San Diego. He and his employees will be dual speakers. He feels that his employees as well as himself should be able to speak English and Spanish at the same time. He feels that doing so will broaden his business and his opportunities. It is true about the differences but I feel that in today’s economy and work environment we need to as leaders set the example and pretty much ignore some things that we were taught as kids so that we can be the example that many of our employees and sometimes bosses need. Emotions You may interpret the same message differently when you’re angry or distraught than when you’re happy. For example individuals in positive moods are more confident about their opinions after reading a persuasive message so well-crafted arguments have stronger impacts on their opinions..vitalsource.com/books/9781269357869/content/id/ch11en48″>48 People in negative moods are more likely to scrutinize messages in greater detail whereas those in positive moods tend to accept communications at face value..vitalsource.com/books/9781269357869/content/id/ch11en49″>49Extreme emotions such as jubilation or depression are most likely to hinder effective communication. In such instances we are most prone to disregard our rational and objective thinking processes and substitute emotional judgments. If everyone agrees this is the biggest barrier we can start to discuss examples. I can say that a perfect example of this may have been our communication for the assignment last week. I think that I can be very direct and to the point about things via email. I have a lot on my plate with school and family and so I quickly lay things out and don’t take into consideration how it may be interpreted. As you learned in my assessment I am not one to really have a lot of conflict in my life and typically I will just take care of whatever I need to to avoid any conflict. So this class is challenging because my quick emails can come across as argumentative when really I am just a bit more rushed and quickly trying to get things to move forward. Instead it slows down the work because I have to back up and further explain what I was trying to convey in my emails to the team. I know that I am a very emotional person and can easily misread things as well which can sometime shut me down a bit to avoid any sort of argument or confrontation. Anyone else have any examples they would like to share?
