Poor communication is the result of many factors. The following list represents some of the most common barriers:

• Sender has poor knowledge of the subject or is inadequately prepared.
• Sender does not believe in the message or support the policy behind it.
• Receiver has poor knowledge of subject or is inadequately prepared.
• Receiver is not interested in the subject.
• Sender or receiver is temporarily preoccupied.
• People unintentionally fail to say what they mean.
• Sender and receiver have different vocabularies.
• Cultural differences exist between communicators.
• Professional differences exist between communicators.
• Communicators have different assumptions.
• Status differences (leader-member) exist between communicators.
• One of the communicators has negative or hostile reactions to the other.
• One or both parties are unintentionally mis-communicating.
• Outside interference or distractions have occurred.
• Pressure of time does not allow effective communications to occur.

In this Module:

In the Toolkit: