Business Communication Assignment

Shreyansh Priyam
PGDM 2016-18
Roll No: P161049

Barriers and Gateways to Communication in this article Rogers and Roethlisbergers talks
about the importance of effective listening. In first part of this article Carl R.Rogers, a
psychotherapist by profession says the person who has unconscious, repressed or denied
desires, creates distortions in the way they communicate with others and makes them suffer
both within themselves as well as in their interpersonal relationships. This problem can be
tackled effectively with the help of psychotherapy as it helps an individual achieve through a
special relationship with a therapist, good communication within himself or herself, which
when achieved helps the person to communicate more freely and effectively with others. He
also states that according to his experience in counselling and psychotherapy, he has found
that peoples tendency to evaluate is the one main obstacle to communication.
Most people have a natural urge to judge, approve or disapprove and evaluate another
persons statement from their point of view, which is common in almost all conversations.
But this reaction gets heightened in situation where feelings and emotions are deeply
involved. This impulse to evaluate any emotionally meaningful statement from one owns
viewpoint is what blocks interpersonal communication, which can be avoided if we listen
with understanding. Listening with understanding means seeing the expressed idea and
attitude from other persons point of view, sensing how it feels to the person, achieving his or
her frame of reference about the subject being discussed. This approach is considered as an
extremely potent approach in psychotherapy, it has also been proved through a research that
such empathic understanding- understanding with a person, not about his/her- is so effective
that it can bring about significant changes in personality. This kind of approach could also
help in accomplishing good results in larger arenas, for example in labour-management
dispute. The reasons this listening approach is not more widely used is because of several
reasons:

Lack of Courage, or willingness to enter another persons private world and see the
way life appears to him/her.
Heightened Emotions, makes it difficult to achieve the frame of reference of another
person or group.
Too Large a Group, as thus far psychotherapists have been able to observe only small,
face to face groups.

However there are some steps suggested that even large groups can take to increase the
amount of listening with and decrease the amount of evaluation about.
Communication through a moderator who listens nonevaluatively and with understanding has
also proven quite effective, even when feelings run high. The moderator can deal with the
insincerities, the defence exaggerations, the lies, and the false fronts that characterize almost
every failure in communication, these defensive distortions drop away as people find that the
Shreyansh Priyam, PGDM 2016-18, P161049

persons intention is to understand, and not to judge. And when one party begins to drop its
defences, the other usually responds in kind, and together they begin to uncover the faces of a
situation.
In the second part F.J. Roethlisberger talks about the barriers to personal communication,
particulary those due to differences in background, experience, and motivation. The potential
for problems seems especially heightened in the context of a boss-subordinate relationship.
He further says, on this question, there are two schools of thought. One school assumes that
communication between A and B has failed when B does not accept what A has to say as
being factual, true, or valid; and that the goal of communication is to get B to agree with As
opinions, ideas, facts, or information. The other school of thought is quite different. Its
assumes that communication has failed when B does not feel free to express his feelings to A
because B fears they will not be accepted by A. Communication is facilitated when A or B or
both are willing to express and accept differences. To further illustrate these two ideas he asks
the readers to suppose a person named Bill, an employee, is in his bosss office. The boss
says, I think, Bill, that this is the best way to do your job. And to that, Bill says, Oh yeah?
According to the first school of thought, this reply would be a sign of poor communication.
Bill does not understand the best way of doing his work. To improve communication,
therefore, it is up to the boss to explain to Bill why the bosss, not Bills, way is the best.
Whereas according to second schools point of view, Bills reply is a sign of neither good nor
bad communication; it is indeterminate. But the boss can take the opportunity to find out
what Bill means.
Then Roethlisberger asks the readers to assume that there are two bosses, representing
different school of thoughts and names the first boss representing first school of thought
Smith and boss of other school of thought as Jones. Further he illustrate the whole scene
about how both the bosses are going to handle this situation or problem.
Smith as he sees himself as a logical chap, assumes that he understands what Bill means
when Bill says, Oh yeah? so there is no need to find out. Smith is sure that Bill does not
understand why this is the best way to do his job, so Smith has to tell him and the more Smith
cannot get Bill to understand him, the more frustrated and emotional Smith becomes which
ultimately will affect his ability to reason, and evaluates Bill more in terms of his own values
and tend to treat Bills as unimportant. Whereas in the other case Jones, does not assume that
she knows what Bill means when he says, Oh yeah? so she has to find out not under any
illusion that what will happen will be a purely logical exchange but an interaction of feelings.
At last Roethlisberger summarises both the conversations and draws out these points:

Smith represents a very common pattern of misunderstanding based on some common

assumptions, which set off a chain reaction of perceptions and negative feelings,
which blocks communication.
Jones makes a different set of assumptions, and because of these assumptions there is
a psychological chain reaction of reinforcing feelings and perceptions that eases
communication between Bill and Jones.

Shreyansh Priyam, PGDM 2016-18, P161049