What can get in the way of Effective Communication
Here are some Common Barriers to Effective Communication.
All of us Make Too Many Assumptions
You need to become aware of the assumptions you make, be especially conscious of making an assumption and then acting as if the assumption you've just made was true. Try to notice when you alter your behaviour because of an assumption that you've made about a particular person. You might also like to pay attention to the assumptions you that you think other people are making about you.
It's not that assumptions are necessarily 'bad'. Indeed it can sometimes be important to let people keep the assumptions (or some of the assumptions at least!) that they have made about you.
One of the effective ways of dealing with assumptions is to say to the other person, 'I've assumed "whatever the assumption is". 'Is that accurate?' or 'I've made an assumption here about... Are you in agreement?'
Good workplace communication can often be sabotaged by one too many unconfirmed assumptions.
Patterns and Reverting to Type
We are all pattern-making beings, which is a good thing most of the time. However, we can get so used to behaving and responding in a certain way, that it becomes hard for us to see that there are any other ways of doing things. When the pressure is on or we are dealing with something stressful, all of our best intentions will go out the window and we will revert to type.
Most of our habits, patterns, behaviours and routine ways of thinking are difficult to change. What you can do to start with is begin to notice your patterns. This at least gets you aware of them! One of the ways to practise this is to look at the communication habits and patterns that have crept into your workplace. See if you can do this for a while without judging them. There will be plenty of time to decide if you want to make changes or not.
The Need to Be Right
This is a huge area of blockage in communication that most of us have some experience of. To some degree we all have the need to be right and therefore a reciprocal need for the other person to be wrong. This is actually a relatively easy skill to develop. Just a little practise in letting go of the need to be right where it doesn't matter so much will begin to shift this behaviour in many people purely because the results will be quite extraordinary. You can start to think of your 'rightness' as presenting information or giving a point of view as opposed to bludgeoning someone else with your argument.
Changing your Want
If you want to create more effective relationships, then changing your want is one of the greatest communication skills you can master. To be able to change what you want from a communication is a little trick that can seem like a miracle cure. You may start out wanting the other person to agree with you, but by giving up that want you can change your mind and choose to want to let them know you really understand their point of view.
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