The Different Barriers in Effective Communication

There are many things that humans naturally do, within a culture, that create confusion within communication. It is important when in a business setting that we surpass these barriers in order to effectively communicate with coworkers, clients, or anyone that we come into contact with while in a business setting.

One of the barriers are euphemisms. These are expressions used to sometimes to make something seem nicer than what is is. For example, someone could say “in a family way,” instead of saying pregnant.

If someone is from a different culture, they may not understand what this means. In a business setting it would be much effective to use the word pregnant. Another way euphemisms are used is to be sarcastic or funny. When they are used in this way they are making the word more harsh. For example a person might say “blow chunks” instead of saying throw up or vomit. It is best to simply avoid these sort of phrases so not to offend someone.

Another barrier is condescending language. Something common in high school, is for an upperclassman to not learn the upcoming freshman’s names and call all freshmen by the name “freshman.” This type of language can be hurtful and demeaning. If a supervisor were to not call his subordinates by their name they will lose respect for him/her. This will create a wall between subordinate and supervisor.

Sometimes condescending language isn’t intentional. Let’s say that a manager wants to congratulate an employee on their recent promotion and they say “I would like to say Congrats on the promotion and expect that you will be very successful in this new position”.

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This would be considered demeaning even though they we congratulating the person. It would be better said as “Congratulations on the promotion. You will do great!” This makes the subject of the sentence the other person instead of the person saying it.

Words need to be chosen very carefully when describing someone. Some words can have the same technical definition but have a negative or positive connotation to it. For example, the words cheap and frugal mean the same thing however cheap implies the person is stingy and not giving and frugal implies the person is fiscally responsible. Cheap has the negative connotation and frugal has the positive.

The last barrier in communication is cliches. A cliche is a commonly used expression that people who do not live in that culture will not understand. For example, saying bun in the oven instead of pregnant. This sort of thing should be avoided or it will cause confusion among people from other cultures. In this situation it would be better to just say pregnant.