Speaking is a much more powerful way of communicating than writing. It is a common perception that business executives sit in their chamber only and are hardly involved in any public speaking but on the contrary business executives have to constantly involve in public speaking talking with groups and individuals. These days it is common to see senior executives appear before the media to explain the corporate policies and other affairs of public interest. To make pubic speaking more effective, the first and the most important requirement is to have the right attitude, the willingness to speak when required to do so. The tone of the voice, the choice of language and the link between what is said and how it influences the audience is also important. Another important thing to kept in mind while speaking publicly is that there is a difference between transmitting information and communicating with the public. The speech should not over load with facts and figures or comparison and contrast etc. Fourthly, your speech must have a poetic touch. It does not mean that versus should be recited while speaking. It means that the speaker should articulate a vision of this mission, plan or objective, and speak in a manner that inspires the audience. It also implies that the speaker’s speech must reflect his character, honesty and integrity.

Once we have acquired the skill of public speaking, it boosts our self confidence as nothing else can.

The major barriers to effective communication falling in the category of personal barriers are:

(i) Listening:
Listening is the most neglected aspect of communication. While the formal education teaches us how to read, write and speak listening is always neglected. Ineffective listening takes place when we hear only with our ears and not with our mind. A manager who over comes the barriers to listening succeeds in generating an atmosphere which promotes the upward flow of communication. Listening can be made more effective by following some of these methods: (i) Finding an area of interest, how communication can be useful for the listener. (ii) Listen to content not delivery. (iii) Allow the speaker to finish before starting to speak. Listen to the central idea and listen with an open mind. Taking notes or making an outline can also increase the effectiveness of listening.

(ii) Vocabulary deficiency:
The range of word available is so great that the vocabulary of a source may include a large number of words that are not recognized by the listener. The problem is further magnified as multiple meanings to a single word can be assigned. For example there are more than 600, 000 words in English but an average users is familiar with 20,000 to 40,000 words and only uses around 10,000 words of these. A large number of misunderstandings can be avoided if we try to enhance the effectiveness of communication by increasing a work vocabulary.

(iii) Selective attention:
As our eyes can handle more than 5 million bits of data per second, our brain can only handle 500 bits of this data. Similar disparities exist in each of our other senses. Thus a communicator should control his gesture, facial expressions and body movements in such a way that the non-verbal cues reinforce the verbal cues. It is important to realize that maintenance of attention is a hard but essential work.

(iv). Word-thought-thing relation:
Even if the sender and the receiver are familiar with the dictionary meaning of the words use in communication the difference in perception and individual experiences may lead them to have different meanings of the same word. This may prevent the sender from accurately expressing his thoughts through verbal and non-verbal language symbols. The meaning of these may even the lost during the process of coding and decoding. A lot of misunderstanding can be avoided if the receiver takes a moment to consider that his reaction may be a result of some experiences over which the sender has no control and he has no knowledge of these experiences.

(v) Failure to react to feed-back
There are two types of failures in reacting to feed back. These could be either over looking or over reacting. When a source over looks the verbal or non-verbal message signals the whole process of communication is threatened. It can result in bored, confused or angry listeners. In contrast there are some who over react to feed back irrespective or the fact that it is positive or a negative feed back. While a small nod by one of the listener is taken as the overwhelming acceptance of his views by the speaker or a yawn by one of the listeners is taken as a sign of boredom by the listener. Such over reaction to feed back should be avoided by a good speaker.

(vi). Bipolar thinking:
Bipolar thinking frequently interferes with effective communication. We have a natural tendency to reduce a complex, COM phenomenon to simple either good or bad conceptualization. We fail to realize the world is north as simple so as to allow such a reduction to the two values systems. We must recognized that the refusal to accept and out right rejection are to different situations. Sometime employees are afraid of questioning a policy least their move is viewed as a total rejection of it. Good managers should encourage feed back, even negative feed back if it is conceptive in nature.

(vii) Tendency to evaluate:
The tendency to evaluate is also a major barrier in effective communication. It is our natural tendency to evaluate or to approve or disapprove the statement of the other person from our point of view. Such an evaluation does not happen in isolation. One negative response builds upon another and the stage comes when finally even the positive statement are interpreted negatively. Such a frame of references results in our misunderstanding of the whole situation.

(viii) Status and power of the source
The status and power of the source can also act as the barrier ineffective communication. We tend to reserve our comments and do not offer them fearing the other party may take affront of it. It is important for managers to create such an atmosphere where this fear complex is not present and a free flow of upward communication is allowed.

Some of the major barriers to effective communication caused by organizational weaknesses are the lack of a communication policy or the authoritarian attitude of the management or in sufficient training in communication. We will discuss the major barriers in detail:

(i) Lack of communication policy:
Very few organizations have a clear and explicit communication policy for inter organization and intra-organizational interaction. A well defined communication policy helps in the creation of a climate that is conducive to effective communication. It is also an adequate proof of the earnest desire of the management to improve the flow of information. To create such a climate free exchange of ideas and information in all directions – downward, upward and horizontal, should be promoted.

(ii) Authoritarian attitude of management:
In the absence of clear communication policy in the organization the managers and supervisors start following the philosophy of “I order you execute” the free flow of upward communication helps in curtailing this attitude. In the absence of the upward flow of communication, managers are not in the position to judge the degree to which the ideas policies and rule and regulations of the organization have been accepted by the employees. A free and frank interaction can result in the contribution of valuable ideas and it also helps in unearthing problem areas before they become trouble areas. The setting up of a formal procedure for handling grievances goes a long a way in removing the hurdles in the way of upward communication.

(iii) Poorly Defined Authority and Responsibility:
Many a times, it is seen that the organization chart does not show where true authority and responsibility is vested. In the absence of this knowledge, the communications may by-pass individuals or certain levels. This by-pass may be by design or may just be an act of omission. Such a situation leads to the emergence of power of communication centers, due to leadership qualities, access to information or technical knowledge of some people in the organization.

(iv) Too Many Levels in Organization Structure:
Longer the passage through which a message is to travel, more are the chances of its distortion. It can also result in delays or even total failure of the message to reach its destination. If the distance through which a message has to travel is great, there is every possibility that it may be changed, modified, shortened, amended or interpreted during transit in such a manner that even the original sender may not be able to recognize the contents of the communication. Thus can additional level in the organizational hierarchy may not be added just to please somebody. It should be need based.

(v) Insufficient Communication Training:
Communication Training, apart from being important for managerial purposes, is also morale-builder. Yet only a few firms have a formal communication training program. It is a sadly neglected area, some techniques which can help gain insight into communication problems are human relation programmes and such exercises as Sensitivity Training, T- group sessions and Transactional Analysis.

Barriers to effective communication can be faced in three different ways in an organization. These barriers could be between one department and the other, between the manager or supervisor and his subordinates and between individuals working at the same level in the organization.

The barriers to communication have been broadly divided into three categories :

(i) Physical Barriers: Environment hindrances can, to a big extent, reduce or even prevent the sending and receiving of messages. Such hurdles may be caused by distance, distracting sounds, breakdown of media or elimination of a channel.

(ii) Personal Barriers: They psychological make up of human beings differs. Such differences among individuals can also account for barriers in communications.

Semantic Barriers: Language idiosyncrasies can create problems in the flow and proper understanding of communications. Multiple meanings of words, different connotations and interpretation of language and words in the light of an individual’s experiences can easily lead to break-down of communication.

An effective communication is said to have take place when the information to be communicated from source to destination reaches correctly and the message is convey in the exact way the sender desired. If this does not happen the communication is ineffective or defunct. Ineffective communication can have serious implications. While effective communication helps a great deal in the achievement of organizational goals, ineffective communication fails to do so. Hence it become necessary that proper guidelines are devised to guide effective communication. There are certain guides that help in effective communication. These are :

(i) Clarity : By clarity we mean any thing that is clear that can be seen or heard easily. Similarly clear directions can be followed with least trouble. If a message has not been understood clearly it can result in confusion, misunderstanding and ambiguity. But such a thing never happens if the message has been communicated clearly. Hence the message should be clear and in simple language which can be understood by any person with average knowledge.

(ii) Consistency: The information communicated should be consistent and there should be no contradiction in it. For example if a supervisor has been directed to manufacture thread of 10 lbs strength and he says to manufacture threads of one and half lbs. Capacity, such kind of order would be inconsistent. The message communicated would be ineffective, because the employees will fail to have clear instruction to a specific kind of job.

(iii) Adequacy: The information communicated should be adequate neither too less nor too much. It will be difficult to understand if it is too short and will become confusing if too much detail is given. Hence adequacy should be ensured if we want the communication to be effective.

(iv) Timing: Timing is an important factor that increases the effectiveness of communication. Any information communicated at an odd hour will have less effectiveness. In the same manner the information communicated should be up to date. The communication would become ineffective if out of date information is provided in it.

(v) Distribution: There are different levels of authority in any organization. The orders should move in their proper directions so that they reach the desired destination and do not bypass any layer of authority. Any such by passing could affect the efficiency of the communication and could also result in work spoilage, disturbance and indiscipline.

(vi) Adaptability and uniformity: The information conveyed in the communication should be adaptable. This means that there should be flexibility of action to meet the requirements of the situation and condition. Similarly there must be uniformity in communication. Uniformity means that a uniform pattern should be followed and there should not be any deviation from the pre determined standards.

(vii) Interest and acceptance: The message communicated must coincide with the interests and acceptance of the person to whom the message is communicated. The message could become ineffective if it has not been accepted or it contains such an order which is contrary to the objective of the communique and he refuses to accept that order.

Thus we see that effective communication goes a long way in the achievement of organizational goals. We can increase the effectiveness of communication by adapting the above mention methods.