Listening is a very important part of communication. Often, we hear what others are saying, but are we truly listening? A person who hears a message but does not really listen to it could completely miss the point of the communication. There are also barriers that prevent communication from being clear between all parties. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the barriers to listening and communication and ways to overcome these barriers to become a better listener and communicator. Effective communication, whether it is interpersonal, group, or within an organization, is an important part of life. Without effective communication, an organization will ultimately fail.
The key to effective listening is actively listening to a message. According to Pamela Shockley-Zalabak, active listening is defined as “hearing, assigning meaning, and verifying our interpretations” (2009 p. 169). Simply hearing a message is not enough to understand what is being communicated. A person must also interpret the message and find meaning within it and then verify that the message is correct. A student sitting in a classroom could hear every word the instructor says, yet fail a test because the student was not really listening.
The text for this course discusses seven barriers to listening. The first barrier is “labeling communicators and subjects as uninteresting or unimportant” (Shockley-Zalaback, 2009, p. 170). Labeling a communicator as unimportant impedes active listening because the person automatically dismisses what the speaker has to say and, therefore, misses the point of the communication. To overcome this barrier, a good listener should realize that just because the subject being discussed may not be interesting or the listener may not like the speaker, the listener should still pay attention to the message being conveyed. A message that may have seemed unimportant or uninteresting could become interesting or important, if only the listener takes the initiative to pay attention and not dismiss the speaker out of hand.
The second barrier discussed is “emotionally resisting messages” (Shockley-Zalabak, 2009, p. 170). This happens when the listener does not like the message being received and, instead of listening to the entire message, tunes the speaker out or begins planning their next argument. Listeners often tune speakers out when the message is negative or controversial. Instead of focusing only on the negatives of a message, a listener should hear out the entire message before attempting to respond. The listener should also pay close attention to the message being received because the message may not be as negative as the listener initially thought.
The third barrier to effective listening is “criticizing personal style instead of messages” (Shockley-Zalabak, 2009, p. 170). When a listener focuses on the speaker’s style of speech or even dress, the content of a message can be distorted or completely missed. Instead of focusing on the style of speech, a good listener focuses on the content of a message. Just because a speaker does not speak well does not mean that the message is not worth listening to.
The fourth barrier discussed is “failing to identify listening distractions” (Shockley-Zalabak, 2009, p. 170). There are more listening distractions than a listener can imagine. The third barrier discussed could actually be considered a listening distraction. If a speaker is dressed in a distracting way, the message can be lost because the listener will not focus on the message, but instead on the way the speaker is dressed. Other listening distractions could include fact overload, a noisy environment, or the listener’s own thoughts. A way to overcome this barrier would be to identify the distractions and attempt to eliminate them. If the speaker is dressed in a distracting way, the listener can focus instead on the speaker’s face and words. If the environment is noisy, the listener can move closer to the speaker in an attempt to be able to pay closer attention to the speaker than the surrounding noise.
The fifth barrier to effective listening is “faking attention” (Shockley-Zalabak, 2009, p. 171). This barrier is very easy for the speaker to not even realize that it is happening. I can count several times where I went into a meeting, nodded my head, made eye contact with the speaker, while off in my own mental world, and when I left the meeting, I had retained nothing that had been spoken of. This is because I was hearing what was being said, but I was not listening. I was pretending to pay attention to stay out of trouble with my supervisor. A student can easily do the same thing. The student goes in to class but has a major test the next class. Instead of focusing on the current teacher’s lecture, the student pretends to pay attention and take notes, while mentally reviewing the upcoming test. The student has missed out because now he has missed a lecture that could be on a future test. To eliminate this barrier, a good listener needs to focus on the speaker and the speaker only. Instead of thinking about other things or drifting off, the listener should pay close attention to what is being said. Just being in a room with somebody is not enough to understand the message being conveyed.
The sixth barrier to listening is “misusing thought speed and speech speed differential” (Shockley-Zalabak, 2009, p. 171). According to Shockley-Zalabak, “we can think three to four times faster than we talk” (2009, p. 171). This means that a listener has much more time to think on other things while a person is speaking. Instead of using this time to focus on the next statement or thinking about the grocery list, the listener should use the speech differential to focus on the speaker’s message and to attempt to make meaning from it.
The final barrier to communication is “not listening” (Shockley-Zalabak, 2009, p. 171). This barrier is obvious. How many times have you, the reader, been speaking to somebody and decided that you just did not want to hear what they had to say? If a listener does not like the speaker or the content being presented, the listener will completely tune out the speaker and refuse to hear the message at all. A good listener should always realize that everybody has a right to speak and be listened to. The listener should try to put his or herself in the position of the speaker and think how they would feel if they were the ones being ignored. Being ignored is never a good feeling, and a good listener should realize this and attempt to focus on the message, regardless of how he or she feels about it.
Barriers to listening could qualify as barriers to communication; however, there are so many more. Barriers to communication can include things such as cultural or language differences, mistrust between the parties, or even stereotypes. The most obvious barrier to communication is differences in language. If two people speak two completely different languages, communication can be very difficult. One way to get past this barrier would be through nonverbal communication. Some hand signs are universal and could be understood by both parties.
Another obvious barrier to communication is cultural differences. Two people who speak the same language but were raised in very different cultures can find it hard to communicate with one another. For example, a person raised as a Hindu would be highly offended if an American invited the Hindu over for dinner and served beef. This would prevent the communication from going any further, because Hindus believe that cows are sacred. A person raised in a Southern environment would be taught to wave at a car passing by, but somebody who was raised farther North would likely take this as a sign of disrespect. A man who was raised in a more traditional household who believes that women should stay at home and be housewives would have problems communicating with a female boss. The best way to overcome this barrier is to understand that not everybody is alike. We expect people to communicate or act a certain way, when the reality is, there are tons of different cultures and each culture has its own way of communicating. If a person is going to a foreign country on a business trip or meeting with a foreign ambassador, the person should take the effort to get to know as much about the culture of the country he will be visiting, or the culture of the visiting person. This could prevent miscommunications due to a lack of knowledge about the culture. People need to learn and accept that every culture is different, and embrace those differences.
Perceptions and stereotypes can also be barriers to communication. This would occur when a person perceives things about the message being told or the person sending the message instead of focusing on the content of the message. A speaker who is perceived as inept or unknowledgeable would not be listened to nearly as well as a person perceived to be an expert in the field being discussed. Stereotypes prevent effective communication because often the people who are stereotyped negatively are seen as not worth the time to listen to. One example of this would be communication between a business person and a fast food worker. People who work at fast food restaurants are often stereotyped as lazy, lacking ambition, or even unintelligent. A business person trying to have a conversation with a fast food worker would be difficult because all the business person would see in the fast food worker is their job. They would automatically discount everything the person says. The best way to get past perception and stereotypes as a barrier to communication is to realize that just because somebody may not seem intelligent or worth talking to, that person could be the most interesting person you might talk to all day. Instead of just looking on the outside of a person, we should all get to know people and listen to what they have to say before writing them off.
The main thing to realize about communication is that it is a very complicated thing. People tend to think that just talking and listening are what makes up communication, but there is so much more to it than that. There are barriers that we face every day in communicating and listening. The best way to get past these barriers is to realize that they exist and actively attempt to eliminate these barriers as suggested previously. By following these guidelines, the reader can hope to become a better listener and communicator. These guidelines will also help ensure the success of communicating within an organization and helping that organization to succeed.
References
Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2009). Fundamentals of Organizational Communication:
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