Case Studies

Barriers to
Business Communication
 ?
• Petty wanted to go through the complete budget of the sales,
marketing and the operations team. She passed on this information to
Joe at his workstation around which lots of other employees were
shouting, the base phone was constantly ringing and the photocopier
machine was making a terrible noise. At the end of the day, Joe
submitted the report but the budget for the operations team was
missing in the report.
• Joe actually had heard only about sales and marketing department and
thus skipped the report of the operations team. Petty fired Joe and
even stopped his appraisal. Unwanted distractions, noise, chit chats of
the other employees etc played the culprit and poor Joe missed out on
his promotion. Noise reduces the chances of the correct flow of
information from the sender to the receiver. If the office is noisy, errors
are bound to happen and thus increasing conflicts among the team
members and decreasing the efficiency of the employees.
• Misha was sharing her phone number with her client and she
never bothered to verify with her client whether he has noted
the correct number or not. One day, the client had a major
query and he had to discuss with Misha on an urgent basis. He
kept on trying the same number which Misha gave but someone
else was responding. He then had to call the front desk lady to
get connected with Misha and obviously he was furious. The
client had wrongly noted Misha’s number and thus wasted his
precious time and lost his temper. While sharing any important
contact number it is the responsibility of the speaker to cross
check with the listener. Email ids must be spelled out properly to
avoid wrong spellings and unnecessary wastage of time.
• Chelsea was not keen for a branding profile but his boss could
never understand her interest and always wondered why
Chelsea was not effectively performing ?
• In any organization, before assigning responsibilities to the
employees, it is a must to understand the employee and his
area of specialization and interest. Communication will be for
sure ineffective if a person from an accounting background is
asked to deliver a presentation on sales techniques. He is
bound to get nervous and the message will fail in creating the
required impact. Don’t just impose work on any employee,
give him the work he enjoys doing the most.
• Jude to Harry - “Harry, I need the complete financial report by end of the
day”
• By financial report, Jude actually meant the complete financial analysis,
which would include the complete details of how much the company
spends in advertising, promotional activities, and other marketing
activities.,analyse the inflow and outflow of expenditure patterns and so
on.
• Harry could never understand Jude’s thought process. He simply compiled
the expenditure details and handed over to Jude. Jude was obviously not
happy. He was expecting much more from Harry. Harry had to resubmit the
project resulting in duplicacy of effort and wastage of time. Jude should
have made it very clear from the very beginning what all he was expecting
from Harry. He kept half of his things within himself and did not share with
Harry. Poor Harry had to redo his work. Every individual has a different
mindset, different level of understanding and thus it is important to share
each and every detail with others and clarify the things from the very
beginning.
• One should remember that the listeners are also a part of the
conversation. The listeners must give their feedback at the end of the
conversation. If you are not clear what your boss is expecting out of you,
or what you are actually supposed to do, please ASK. Don’t hesitate, ask
questions. Don’t hide your queries, ask and clear your doubts then and
there only. Your boss will only feel happy if you share your queries with
him.

• For the successful running of an organization, it is important that

transparency is maintained among the employees at all levels.
Communication barriers must be overcome in organizations to ensure
the free flow of information between the sender and the recipient and
for an effective communication among the employees. Effective
communication reduces the error rate, reduces conflicts and mis
understandings and in turn increases the profitability of the organization.
Every employee must try their level best to avoid the communication
barriers in organizations for an effective business communication.