Understanding Communication Breakdown: Barriers and Solutions in Soft Skills

good morning welcome back you have been listening to a series of lectures in soft skills and in the previous lecture we talked about organizational communication but then you all know that we do not communicate only in organization and only with an organizational purpose we also

communicate at homes we communicate with friends with relatives with seniors and juniors at the work places and the nature of these communication since varies from one context to another at times because of certain regions we are not able to communicate properly or effectively

now in this lecture we are going to talk about communication breakdown but before letting you know what we mean by breakdown let me tell you a very small story which is from a famous essayist ag gardeners on saying place the incident is that a passenger enters the

lift and says top the lift man says top please the passenger once again says top at this the lift man throws the passenger out of the lift now this is very small this is actually and when it was enquired it was found that the lift man wanted some sort of curtsy from

the passenger whereas the passenger denied to respond to the curtsys and when the entire case was examined this was actually a case of communication breakdown now the question is when you are communicating with the person you do not know the nature

as well as the expectation of the other party when this lift man was asked why he did so it was found that the lift man was not treated properly in his house now this was actually a sort of reaction so when people communicate all of us have some pre occupied ideas but

when we communicate sometimes we do not leave those preoccupied ideas and we communicate and in such a moment of communication we do not communicate exactly what we want you will come across many such instances let me ask you to imagine the following situations

imagine a small child crying continuously and when the child cries because crying is also sort of communication which child actually wants to say something the mother comes and simply provides her the bottle of milk and the child is yet crying the mother comes again

and finds everything is fine but the child cries continuously it is later found that the child was feeling quite uneasy because the bed on which the child was sleeping was wet now the question is the mother could not understand in the

very first instance what was the reason of the childs crying and hence she could not find out the solution later when she saw that the bed was wet and she changed the child stopped crying so this is a case of communication breakdown or communication barrier there is

another case you can also imagine you are going to travel to bangalore for an interview you have booked your tickets well in advance and the date for your travel is twenty fifth and the time is night so very carefully you have packed everything

and you go to the station you also broad the train but then you find that somebody else is occupying your seat on enquiry he says that the seat is his and he shows you a ticket also now when you look at the ticket you are dumb found it the t t comes and on an enquiry

he says your train departed only last night it is later that you realize that your train for which the ticket you have bought the departure time was twelve thirty and in railways the dates change after twelve now this is again a sort of breakdown or barrier either because

you did not know or you perhaps is kept same is the case when you visit a doctor and the doctor prescribe some medicine and then you stop taking that medicine very seriously and yet you feel that the problem still persists actually what the doctor had done is the doctor

had written a word like s o s while prescribing a particular tablet and the doctor was under the impression that you will understand the meaning of this s o s perhaps you ignored because the meaning of s o s is it is actually to be taken when required when the pain purses

for a long time but you skip the fact and that is why the communication breakdown likewise you write an electronic mail in a very beautiful language to one of your foreign friends and the reply does not come you later realize that either your letter was too long or your

sorry or your email was too short so you come across different ways of communication breakdown which we also call communication barrier now what is this communication barrier if you look at this situation you will find that communication barrier is when you start

a communication process some way or the other there is something that either blocks restricts or interferes with the smooth flow of message and since the message does not go smooth since the most message does not achieve its required purpose it ends in a breakdown that is why

when you come across a communication breakdown you really feel very embarrassed but then here in these two letters i am going to discuss how you should be quiet careful when communicating so that the communication crisis does not happen

now how to do that you have to understand why things go wrong what was actually the reason behind these communication breakdown or barrier and then what could be the solution you know once you realize the problem you know you do not succeed just in one interview

but you will feel in course of time that when you start making a sort of review of what the questions were asked and how you responded you will come to a realization that this could have been answered in different way and you utilize that in another interview and in this

process you learn and you also become successful same is true of communication barriers also you create a communication barrier but when you realize you perhaps try to improve it and you become successful so while you are going to identify like what cause this barrier

you can also find about various alternatives or solution and depending upon the situation you have to apply the best solution and then see feedback and you will find that you have been successful now dear friends this communication barrier

cannot be confined only to one situation in life situations change new and new situations new and new circumstances emerge every now and then and that is why you have to understand that how this breakdown or barrier can be classified this barrier can either be at the

source now you you know well because we have already discussed that communication is actually a process of sharing information between the two where there is a sender there is a receiver so on majority of occasions there is a problem or there is a breakdown at the source you

as a sender you are the source how you manipulate the information how you create the communication that totally depends upon you so some way or the other there may be some laps in the way you form the message you create the message there can also be breakdown

between people i mean you do not communicate alone but you communicate alone also because communication as we have discussed can be interpersonal when you are communicating to yourself it can be interpersonal when you are communicating either with some two people

three people so with groups of people and there also can be communication breakdown in the organization because ultimately because as we have said earlier all of you belong to organizations and you will have to communicate in the organization so these three types of

communication barrier how do they arise and how best we can guard them or if it has already happened how we can overcome them and try to warn ourselves or to make ourselves guard against such barriers we shall discuss now what is this breakdown at the source so

when we say breakdown at the source we mean breakdown with the sender i mean you as a sender you create a message and when you create a message you create a message either in a spoken form you you create a message in the written form now a days you have lot of channels

available at your disposal and that is why when you are creating the message and you create the message depending upon the situation of the circumstance so initially what happens you start faltering with words say for example you have to write a letter

or an application for leave now it is it is very difficult you know because of the prop legacy of these channels of information many of the youngsters they still find it difficult as how to write a leave application because in a way these communication technologies

have threatened our language and have blocked at times we have a system where we fill in the leave now and and you come to know but if you have to write but then this is not one example there are many such examples where you need to write where you need to speak

where you need to express where you need to share where you need to communicate where you need to belong and for all this you need some sort of communication strategy so when you are communicating and you know sometimes you may come across the very difficult situation

and in this difficult situation when you are going to write a message what happens is you start thinking for words you start faltering for words as to what word should be more suitable then on many occasions you are not certain about the content if you

understand why you are going to write this message why you are going to make this call why you are going to address a particular group then depending upon the need what you do is you are going to decide the content so on many occasions you are not confident

of the content and then there can be differing backgrounds all of us we come from differing backgrounds since we have brought up in different circumstances in different ambiences about tastes habits as we have been discussing since the beginning we tend to develop a sort of

background in which we are brought up but then what we do is we actually our background it affects our communication say for example if i talk about a literary piece today and if if i say oh yes mister x ah if you read that book you will find this

so you will find after sometime ah this person will start showing his disinterest in you and the reason is because he has not read that book or he never intends to read that book so this is a case of differing background you know all communication will have a sort

of homophily i mean common frame of reference that is why two computer engineers they will talk very smoothly two doctors they will talk very smoothly two lawyers they will talk very smoothly because there a common reference sometimes when on a particular subject both

the parties are interested they will have a better communication and on many occasions you have wrong inferences wrong inferences this wrong inferences what are these you will find ah you you you remember that famous know illusion that sometimes when you are walking

and if it is just the start of the evening even a small rope can appear to be a snake so this is this is one example of a inference initially this is not a snake this is only a rope but you suddenly come to the conclusion that it is a snake so this is you every individual

makes his or her inferences according to his own psyche and then there can be differences in perception you know all people in this world they are having different perceptions they do not respond to the same situation the way you expect them everyones perception

is his own and you will also come across even you will also feel yourself that you come across some people who are of rigid categories now what are these rigid categories no this rigid categories are say for example when one day you are invited to a talk and this

talk is on nanotechnology and you are a student of nanotechnology you have done so many papers on nanotechnology and then you start believing oh will there be something new nanotechnology no no you have learnt a lot on nanotechnology everything in that area you know and then

you decide not to go there and even if you go there you actually create such a situation you either whisper to your friend oh what he is saying is of no significance i know more than this now this is actually a syndrome where you feel you know everything now this

is this is this is you you and more over you feel that there can be no further innovation there can be no further knowledge in this regard that you really required so an an at times you have a sort of frozen evaluation also you sometimes believe no if

if sometime one day you miss the train and the next day when you go you actually go ten minutes or say sometimes fifteen minutes earlier to the station in the hope that maybe you will miss the train again so you never know that situations change things change and this

time the train itself is delayed so this is a sort of frozen evaluation and on many occasions you start blindering you feel that the situation will happen time in again dear friends change is the law of nature every now and then things change and people also

have to change so that is why when you are communicating see to it that when you become very rigid you cannot communicate too much then comes categorical thinking you will often come across people as i said you know who will say all the people in this organization

they are against me all i say or do is taken negatively all source of information which are being flowing they are flowing only from computer language they have not given any importance to written communication now this this this this appears when you start feeling

that you are a person of categorical thinking you suffer from a sort of allens syndrome every now a and you know every now and then when you will talk this this these words will appeared all every fine every now and then ah so you ensure you actually announce to

the outside world that you know everything and that is why you are not able to communicate and this and when you do that and when you communicate in such a situation this will result in a sort of communication breakdown now we are talking about breakdown between

people which we also can call interpersonal communication now this interpersonal communication it actually happens not ah ah in your everyday life but you will you will find in organizations also so in such a situation what happens is you have a difference sort of perception and

this perception of reality your perception of reality will be totally different from others perception of reality you know people have different sorts of perception about looking at or viewing at things at times you have a limited vocabulary no sometimes what you

do is since you have a limited voca and you do not understand that one word may have so many meanings if you rely only upon say if you rely only upon one word and you rely upon only one meaning it will become very difficult you know there

are situations when you have to tied over when you have to overcome when you have to come out of that and if you believe only in one word if you have a very limited vocabulary you cannot have a proper communication so there can be a breakdown between people you

know when you say let us take a word like fast you know you use the word fast now this word fast can be used differently by different people say for example if i say ah you are very fast now i have left something here when i say

you are very fast maybe the other person may say fast regarding my speed fast regarding my dealing fast regarding or does it have some other meaning because you know words can be used idiomatically at times and and in particular a context when a particular

word is used it may be taken in differently or maybe interpreted differently by different people and then there can also be ah breakdown because of emotional outbursts every now and then we are not in a proper mood ah we we are full

of emotion sometimes that is why we often say if you are emotionally surcharged either you know excessive of anger excessive of love excessive of sentiments so in such situation when you communicate sometimes you are excessively tired so if you are communicating you do not

have a control over words you do not you know you perhaps ignore some other facts also about how are use a particular word will be reacted to by the receiver and then during such emotional outbursts you are not able to communicate effectively and whatever you communicate

say for example ah a a modern day professional which surrounded by all sorts of gadgets he is working on his laptop at the same time a phone call comes and it starts attending that phone call and at the same time the some some other pieces of information come ah with

a support system ah from some other division and if you are concentrating on a particular piece of work you will find that this will become incomplete for example ah you you forget or you tend to forget or you tend to skip over some of

the words which could have been used there and then poor listening ah in in in a previous lecture we talked about how people listen and why listening is very important you know if you are on majority of occasions people do not listen but remember when you are communicating

with a purpose listening becomes very important there are different factors which impede listening now sometimes maybe ah in outside disturbances sometimes because you are working in a room where you can you know many people often say i can hear everything that people in the adjacent

room says now in such a situation what happens you are listening and the way you were listening sometimes you are lost in your own thoughts will you be able to listen properly you will not so because of ah poor listening also you communicate

in a way that ends in a communication breakdown and there is another way which is called communication selectivity every person listens to as we have said earlier listens to the piece of information which actually interests him say for example and and what he does is he ignores

the other part say you are appearing at an interview and while a question is put before understanding the entire question you picked up one of the phrases or the clauses which you know and you start responding you will find to your great shock that you have answered

quite negatively so this this actually creates a sort of communication barrier or communication breakdown every person has a sort of communication selectivity we use the word you actually take out things which you understand it is of interest to you you forget about ah the other parts

and that is how you you create a sort of communication barrier next is noise do you do you really feel ah that noise is a sort of disturbance but i will believe noise is a sort of communication you know but then noise can also help you

give a lot of excuses say when you are talking over telephone and you try not to supply the best piece of information and you try to make a sort of pretension what you say i am not able to hear your voice clearly i am not able to concentrate on because there is a lot of

noise i am at a at a place where i am surrounded by a crowd and there is a lot of (( )) but remember when you are communicating this noise also can be a deterrent it can also stop are the proper communication it can also help in giving confused ah sounds that you

utter or sometimes if you are writing it will also not help you concentrate and then another important factor which helps or which destroys communication is the lack of proper balance between verbal and nonverbal messages you speak a word you speak a sentence you are

giving a direction but at the same time the language that is there on your face or the way you react to maybe different so a careful communicator has to say either if you are a leader or say if you are in the role of a decision maker you have to understand

that communication is very comprehensive it is very subjective and you have to look at both the verbal and the nonverbal you say something in words but the way it is said that has a lot to mean so please try to understand and moreover it will vary as we have discussed

in our lecture on culture and communication that it varies from one culture to another you know we we we have discussed how when during a communication you become silent it can be understood differently by different people even even while you are ah you know

there is an example that in kenya ah the son in low and the mother in low these do not face each other when they communicate now this may be understood in a different manner in our cultures because because we believe that when you communicate in in many

countries you know even even for for an assignments even for initiating a dialogue between two countries are the women ah they are not sent but then there may be other voices ah from ah some organizations that it is a sort of discrimination because you know the entire

world as i said the ah other day the entire world is global and there are diversity of cultures so when you are communicating you also have to be aware of these cultural considerations when you are communicating then we come to

the perception as i said your perception and my perception to two things will be totally different so we should not always believe that everyones perception will be the same as ours ah here it is very ah pertinent to ah emphasize on how important is language

language is a code you know you language is a code so when you are using a language you are actually transferring your thoughts we have said and we will repeatedly say ah that when you are using a particular word you actually try to situate a particular meaning

in it but then how it will be reacted to it depends entirely upon the receiver here it is of paramount importance as to what mark to incest the difference between the right word and almost right word is the difference between lightening and a lightening bug of

course the difference is true less but you know this difference may create a lot of confusion when you are communicating that is why ah when you communicate with a doctor as i said in the beginning the way he uses a language like s o s unless you understand

since you do not understand and the doctor was under the impression that you understood it but you kept on taking ah the tablets as you took other tablets and this created a lot of problem so that may be the case also say for example when you are communicating

with a person of different background and you say ah may i request you to put in a word to your friend so that when i go for ah my passport i may not have a difficulty and your friends is no no i have i i will tell him and you know while discussing your case he

will be very loyal now you start wondering as to what loyal what does it mean and then you perhaps realize that he could have said instead of loyal he could have used the term he will be very kind you will very considerate and not loyal so

the question is when you are using a word or when you expect other party ah to communicate you actually expect that this should be communicated in such a manner that words convey the real meaning ah of the intended message and that is possible all you when the receiver also

enjoys that is why the importance of background is very important moreover you will also find a that on many occasions you come across a barrier which arises because of a semantic gap when i say semantic gap what we mean is a

sort of language gap linguistic gap now at times many people even even you know as a youngster when you write something ah you you think that you should use some such words so that you can be appreciated for your mastery of ah words but then you perhaps ignore the

fact that this letter or this electronic mail or this message when it reaches the other party how he or she will react to so there may be a semantic gap and moreover one word that you are using in one context may be understood differently

say for example if if you know let us take the example of how ah the word side walk sidewalk which is used by people in the us they use sidewalk whereas others may use it as pavement and in the in india we may say it is just a platform so this is how they interpret and

because all of us use words according to our own knowledge according to our own experience according to our own background but then this may not be true when it comes to be understood by other people ah similarly when when we say when the britishers say table a motion

the meaning is to act on but the us people they understand to postpone this is actually the way we use words dear friends while we are communicating we actually see ah that our basic intention has to be understood by the ah receiver

and that is why we say the it has to be a cordial cooperation between the sender and the receiver but sometimes we ignore are the background of the other people sometimes we ignore the knowledge of the other people and and and we create a communication that is

bound to ah be very destructive and remember when you are communicating you actually want to ah sometimes you want to speak what you think proper but that may be in proper also likewise when i am communicating with you i think that you might be understanding everything

and that is why i can speak at my liberty but then that can at times be troublesome hence the time has come not to burden your minds too much ah and ah end this lecture by saying that communication is a sort of consideration it is a sort of negotiation

between the two people and if any skip if any you know if any channel if any thought if any word has not been spoken carefully that may result in a sort of miscommunication and communication means to unite to divide communication means to make or bring people

closer not to make them distance hence since i want you to be very close i will not communicate further in this lecture rather in the next lecture when we will be talking we shall see how more and more information loading up more and more information can also and in a sort

of breakdown thank you very much