Barriers to communication

How to reduce the impact of barriers

General communication skills

·         Age of audience

·         Cultural differences

·         Engaging the audience and keeping them interested

Age of audience

The age of the audience could be a barrier because if the audience is young they might not understand what you are saying but to over come this barrier you should find out what age group it will be if it both young and old you will have to speak in a way that everybody understands. The tone of your voice could also be a barrier because if your voice is too low some of the audience might not be able to hear you clearly especially the older people, so to overcome this barrier you should speak loud and clear so that everyone can hear and understand you.

 

Cultural Differences

The culture of the audience you are speaking to could be a barrier because what you say might offend some cultures so to overcome this barrier you should find out who you will be speaking to and also try to find out what offends them for example some cultures be offended when women are physically greeted.  

Interpersonal skills

·         Hearing difficulties

·         Body language

Hearing difficulties

People with hearing problems could be a barrier because they will find it difficult to hear when you are speaking so to over come this barrier you could have a computer screen that types what you speak because the person will be able to read or you could just type out what you are going to say in your PowerPoint.

Body Language

Body language can be a barrier because if people who cant hear very well see you move your hands it can put them of or if you fold your arms they will think your being aggressive, so to overcome this problem move your hands in a way that doesn't come across as being agressive so dont move your hands as often.

Communication in Writing

·         Relevant

·         Email

Relevant

This can be a barrier because in a business if they were to have guidelines and everybody had to follow it might not be relevant/make sense to the employee, so to overcome this problem the business could explain the reasons behind these guidelines.

Email

Email can be a barrier because it is harder to explain something over an email than it is to do in person so to try and overcome this problem you could ring the person and ask questions about what they don’t understand.

Principles of Effective Communication

Effective communication

This means that information has been transmitted from a sender to a receiver is clear, fit for purpose and timely. A sender could be and employee customer of friend and the receiver could be one person or a group of people or a target audience. It is divided into 3 main areas:

·         General skills

·         Interpersonal skills

·         Written communication skills

Age of audience

This will have an impact on the way communication happens, because you may need to vary your voice to keep the audience interested especially if you are talking to young children because they will lose concentration very easily so if your talking with the same tone of voice all the time and using words they don’t understand then they will zone out.

You will have to speak words that the audience understands or else they won’t know what you are talking about. You will also have to think about how you are going to present your message either to use rhyme or music or to deliver it electronically.

Cultural differences

This is very important when you are trying to engage in communication. A different culture could mean a different part of country or world which could also mean a different language or accent, different beliefs which could be politically, socially, environmentally or religiously based.

This is also very important because you need to make sure that you are talking in a way that your target audience understands and that you don’t upset any of your audience due to their culture or beliefs. An example where different beliefs may be different would be greetings because in some countries this means a kiss on the cheek but in other countries to embrace someone physically especially a woman could be very disrespectful so you need to be careful on what you say and do.

Interpersonal skills

For communication to happen two or more people need to be involved. One person expresses a message through words (spoken or written), signs, signals, bodily expressions, facial or even silence. The other person uses their senses, mainly sight and hearing to gather the message from the other person. Being able to communicate with a person or people at all levels is very important and how you communicate information in terms of delivery method, style and use of body language reflects on the type of person you are.

A range of methods can facilitate interpersonal communication including:

·         Verbal exchanges

·         Signing

·         Lip-reading

Verbal exchanges

This is a direct form of communication and the response is received immediately, especially if the verbal exchange is conducted in person not over a phone. A change of tone is needed to express some emotion

·         A raised voice can indicate anger or impatience

·         A lowered voice can show fear or insecurity

Positive Language

The word yes is a positive response to a question, also your facial expression can be positive such as your smile. Nodding your head conveys your agreement or willingness to listen to what is being said.

Negative language

Cutting in while another person is speaking, depending on how you do it can convey enthusiasm or may be seen as antagonistic. Finishing other peoples sentences for them can be very irritating and may indicate insensitivity on your part.

If you decide not to react at all and remain impassive this also communicates a clear negative message to the speaker this could mean that you are not interested in what is being said.

Signing

Signing or sign language is an effective way of communication with a person who has hearing difficulties and cannot hear people talking. Sign language uses body language, hand movements, facial expressions and lip movement to convey words and thoughts.

Written communication skills

Written communication is fundamentally different from other forms of communications. It requires special skills in the construction of the message. Written communication also requires you to have sufficient knowledge of a language. It can be formal in terms of providing a legal seal such as contract of employment or a business agreement. It can also be informal in terms of writing an email or letter to a friend.

Using correct grammar and spelling

Written communication provides a clear and structured method of transferring information between people, but the clarity and structure can be impeded if the information that was sent wasn’t grammatically correct in terms of spelling, punctuation or sentence construction.

Mistakes convey an unprofessional image to the reader. If it is difficult to read and understand then it will cause confusion for the reader. If it was written using word processed software then any mistakes can be amended  but if it is hand written then the spelling needs to be checked by the reader.

Emails

Nowadays emails are used more and more frequently. Information that is usually sent in a letter can now be reproduced in an email and sent a lot faster and also is more cost effective. In addition one email can be sent to many people and a response can be almost immediate.

Employee Attributes

Technical knowledge

A variety of technical skills might be considered necessary for any job. For example the qualifications you need for rainbow charity would be at least level 3 in I.T. You need to be able to record information onto a CD. Need to be able use Microsoft office (Microsoft word, spreadsheets and databases). They would need to be able to maintain databases. Need to have good I.T skills (level 3). Need to be able to blog

Good working procedures

Working procedures and systems can be classified as generic and specific.

Generic means that all organisations have similar systems in place to address issues such as health and safety and data protection act. Specific is unique to the organisation and these could include compliance with a set of rules, codes or professional practice. An example of specific working procedures that rainbow charity could use would be a dress code.

Working procedures and systems are essential to any job role because they provide the guidelines and instructions in terms of working and behaving as a professional.

Attitudes

Independence

Employers would like to employ people who don’t need to be told what to do next in other words think for themselves, but they don’t want people who don’t check first to make sure they are doing it right or asking other employees what is normally done. This would be helpful to rainbow charity because it means they can leave them to work with a client and not have to keep checking on them.

Confidence

If you lack confidence your approach to problem solving may be too cautious so by lacking this confidence you would have the courage to try the best strategy. If you don’t have confidence you wont achieve your goals, but you don’t want to be too confident as this could lead to you rushing things or not think things through while planning your strategy. So confidence is important but needs to be based on a genuine skill level. Confidence would also be helpful because if they don’t have confidence they might not want to talk to clients on their own so by having this confidence they would be able to talk to anyone.

 

Learning styles

Learning styles vary from one person to another, no two people learn in the same way. There have been lots of test carried out of the last few years to see what way people learn. These tests identify the different characteristics in which people have.

Learners can be described in the following ways:

·        Active/reflective

·        Sensing/intuitive

·        Visual/verbal

·        Sequential/global

Style
Active	Reflective
This means people learn by doing things – these learners feel the need to get involved	Sit back and think before they do something, they don’t just do it they think it through first.
Sensing	Intuitive
Using a method to address tasks, sometimes a repetitive learner	Like to use more innovative methods, don’t like things to be repeated, like to think of new things
Visual	Verbal
Visual learners learn work more effectively in a visual environment, through maps and drawings	These learners are more effective with written tasks, instructions and guidelines. They like to hear or read information.
Sequential	Global
These learners learn by taking small steps, they need to have information in order to be able to understand, they put together the information they get to see the bigger picture.	These learners like to learn in large jumps, can solve complex problems quickly, they put things in novel ways once they see the big picture but might have difficulties explaining it.

There is 3 learning styles:

·        Visual

·        Auditory

·        Kinaesthetic

Visual

Visual learners learn by seeing things for example pictures, charts or diagrams. These learners pay close attention to others body language. Visual learners can make movies in their minds which are vivid and detailed.

Auditory

Auditory learners learn by hearing information. They remember information best if someone is talking to them. They have very strong language skills which lead to strong oral communication skills. These learners can remember quite accurately details of information they hear in conversations or lectures.

Kinaesthetic

Kinaesthetic learners learn by doing things actively. They are the hands on learners who learn more easily when movement is involved. These learners often tap their feet or move their legs when they sit.

Below is a link which helped me find out what sort of learner i was which was a kinaesthetic learner and it will also help you find out what sort of learner you are.

http://www.brainboxx.co.uk/a3_aspects/pages/VAK_quest.htm

I am a kinaesthetic learner this means that I learn best when I see something being done actively. This helps me with my learning because it means that I will remember stuff that I have only seen once which is very helpful but when it comes to listening to information it can be difficult.