Communication Process and Communication Barriers in an Organization

Mostly, “Communication” term is used by behavioural theorists, management scholars and the general public. We will follow here some definition of communication which has been varyingly defined over the years.

I am going to share some definition of communication process from one of the MBA books - MB0023.

According to the Newman and Summer, communication is used as,

“an exchange of facts, ideas, opinions or emotions by two or more persons.”

Here Newman and Summer theorizes communication as an exchange of views.

Hoben defines it as,

“Communication is the verbal interchange of thought or idea.”

He is not dealing with written and visual communication.

We get a good definition about communication by Anderson who says,

“Communication is the process, by which we understand others and in turn endeavor to be understood by them. It is dynamic, constantly changing and shifting in response to the total situation.”

So, the definition is in the process and continuances.

Function and Purpose of Communication

In an organization communication helps to establish and disseminate the goals. It facilitates the development of plans for the achievement of goals. Communication helps to manage and utilizes manpower and other resources in the most effective and efficient manner. Communication helps manager lead, direct and motivate employees to contribute right things.

Process of Communication

Normally, communication is known as interpersonal, wherein the information or message is transferred from one person to the others. Transmitting person of the message is called the sender or transmitter. Receiver of message is called the receiver. The process of converting information that has to be sent, into a format which the receiver can understand is known as encoding.

Information can be encoded into various formats – oral, written or visual. To show each of the formats we had to go through a medium called channel. There are many channels of communication which may be a letter, memorandum, computer, telephone, fax, telegram or a television.

Information which is transferred to the receiver has to be interpreted. Interpretation is known as decoding. The process of replying is known as feedback. Here is a diagram of communication process:



So, to send any message a sender chooses a suitable channel and finally receiver sends a message back to the sender.

Barriers to Effective Communication

In each process of communication – encoding, transference and decoding, there may be possibility of interface. It may hamper the communication process. This is known as noise. It is just like carrying water in leaky bucket. Barriers are also major difficulties during message transferred. To ensure clarity in communication, barriers must be eliminated or minimized.

Barriers of communication can be defined as

Linguistic and cultural differences: It creates the problem for receiver to complete or understand the language used by the transmitter.

Environment: Noise is the basic barriers in the types of environment barriers of communication.

Channel: A faulty fax machine, a crackling phone or illegible hand-writing can be barriers of channel communication.

Receiver’s Attitude and Behaviour: The type comes basically in organization to satisfy clients. It can lead the inaccurate hearing of the information.

Transmission Journey: There can be some difficulties during transmission journey. So, it is necessary to repeat the massage and use more than one channel to communicate a message.

Lack of Planning: Purpose to communicate a person should be very clear. So, planning is the most effective thing to void lack of planning in communication.

Semantic Distortion: The distortion comes in the uses of words. It may be a serious barrier to effective communication.

At last, we can sum up communication definition, function, process and barriers. To handle a person or an organization it is the most necessary thing to understand communication, communication process and communication barriers. There should be a planned way of communication to understand or send a message.