What are the barriers to communication?
Christopher Whitnall: Communication between two people often seems very simple and very easy. Often it is not those things.
So in its simplest form what happens is, somebody has an idea in their mind, they turn it into words, they speak those words and the person who they are intending that message to get to, takes on the message.
In some cases, that works really cleanly.
Sadly, it’s not always as simple as that. So there are often a large number of barriers that will get in the way of the way of your intended message getting to the person you are intending to take that message on.
Some of those barriers might be, the language you are using. Are you using jargon, are you using language that the person doesn’t know, or information they don’t understand.
How is the person feeling in the way that they take on that message. Are they hungry? Are they tired? Is the room hot? Is the room cold? Do they like you or not like you? What is their state in the way they are taking on that message?
The other is the preconceived ideas or the preconceived thoughts they’ve got going on, or their own experiences and their own reference structures as the message is coming to them.
So, what seems often a very simple transfer of taking an idea or thought, turning it into words and sending it to somebody else often has an enormous number of barriers that get in the way to that message getting to the person in the way that you intended to get there.