BUS101 Business Communication- Potential Barriers

Business Communication, is defined as the process by means of which relevant and required information is conveyed to the different employees as well as the different business associates (Guffey and Loewy 2012). Effective business communication is very important for the efficient working as well as the overall growth of the company or the organization. I am the operating manager of an advertising company. Recently, an incident happened, where I was misunderstood by my employees. An order had come in for the advertisement of a newly launched product in the market. The thing that happened was that either I failed to communicate the requirements of the new project to my employees adequately or they misunderstood the instructions given. The end-result of this was that we lost the project as well as an entire day’s productivity. There were some employees, who were not sure about the thing that they were required to do. On the other hand, there were some, who assumed that they were required to do certain things.

Theorists have come up with different models of communication like Aristotle’s model of communication, linear communication, Helical model of communication, Berlo’s model of communication and various other (Bargiela-Chiappini and Nickerson 2014). Aristotle’s model of communication is one of the most effective models of communication. This model requires the presence of at least two people-speaker and the listener. The primary focus of this model is on the speaker of the instruction. The speaker is required to conveyed all the relevant information to the listener as well inspire or motivate them through his speech. The first focus of the speaker is to list as well as segregate all the relevant information that he or she wants to convey to the receivers so that the receivers can act or work in the way he or she desires. I usually try to follow the Aristotelian model of communication during the communication of most of the business communication to my employees. The information regarding the failed project that I just mentioned in the last paragraph was also conveyed in this model of communication. I consider that the chief qualities of a good communication should be ethos, pathos as well as logos. Ethos refers to the quality of being credible or persuasive to the listeners. Taking into consideration the incident of the failed project, I think that the pathos or the importance of the project that I conveyed to my employees was not properly understood by them and the result of this was that the new project was not given the amount of priority or importance that should have been given to it (Goetsch and Davis 2014). The next important factor, that influencing the Aristotelian model of communication is logic, which suggests the logic behind any action or effort. I think that the logic behind the new project, the way that the project needed to be completed and the things that particular individuals were required to do in the project was misunderstood by them.The most important drawback of the Aristotelian mode of communication that I have been using is the absence of the feedback system. The absence of the feedback makes it difficult for the speaker to comprehend to what extent the message or the information is understood by the receivers of the message or the information.

There are various potential barriers that hamper the process of effective business communication. The first common barrier, that hampers the process of effective business communication is the overuse of jargon or in other words the use of too much of technical, unfamiliar as well as over-complicated terms that the listeners find difficult to comprehend(Kei  and Yazdanifard  2015). Another commonly encountered barrier is the lack of attention or interest or the irrelevance to the receiver or any other distractions that the listeners might encounter while the information or the message is being delivered by the speaker. Emotional barriers as well as taboos often act a barrier in the process of effective business communication as it is often seen that many people find it difficult to express their emotions as well as some of the off-limits topics, normally called taboos. Therefore, the information that gets communicated in that scenario is only a part of the entire information that was meant to be transmitted. There are some physical barriers to the process of non-verbal communication as well. It is often seen that the information that we are trying to convey is not being properly understood by the receivers if the non-verbal gestures, body language, facial reactions or the posture of the speaker is  not being properly understood or noticed by the listeners. This is one of the reason why phone calls or text message are not often considered as effective modes of communication. There are other factors as well that act as barrier to the process of effective communication like language and cultural differences, expectations or prejudices that often lead to a misunderstanding of the original message and various others.

There are various strategies by means of which the barriers to effective business communication can be removed or minimized. I adopted a number of strategies to overcome the barriers following the communication mishap in the incident described. The first strategy that I implemented was to start the process of receiving feedbacks after each communication. This method helps me to find out the extent to which the message or the information conveyed by me is understood by the receivers of the information as well as the plan that they intend to undertake for the execution of the plan (Grassl 2012). The other strategy I came up with, was to make the communication more interactive so that the doubts as well as the problems of the individuals to whom the message or the information is delivered gets clarified at the very beginning. This strategy avoids the possibility of confusion as well as the related problems associated with it. I also made certain changes in the way I used to convey the messages. I decided to make a clear plan about the ideas that I need to focus more on during the course of the communication as well as the ideas that I just need to gloss over. The most important thing that helped me to overcome that communication mishap was the realization of the fact that I was using the mode of communication that was inappropriate. The change of the mode of communication helped me to overcome the barriers to effective communication as well as helped me to convey the information or the messages more adequately.

Therefore, it becomes apparent from the above discussion that business communication is one of the important aspects of the business world. There are certain barriers, which tend to make the communication ineffective and therefore proper care should be taken to overcome them. Often changing the mode of communication also helps to improve the effectiveness of the communication process.

References

Bargiela-Chiappini, F. and Nickerson, C.R., 2014. Writing business: Genres, media and discourses. Routledge.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

Grassl, W., 2012. Business models of social enterprise: A design approach to hybridity. ACRN Journal of entrepreneurship Perspectives, 1(1), pp.37-60.

Guffey, M.E. and Loewy, D., 2012. Essentials of business communication. Cengage Learning.

Kei, S.S. and Yazdanifard, R., 2015. The Significance of Intercultural Communication for Businesses and the Obstacles that Managers should Overcome in Achieving Effective Intercultural Communication. Global Journal of Management And Business Research.