Summary: Six Major Barriers To Effective Business Communication

Week 2 - Written Assignment

As a communicator, we are trying to make the message we want to pass as clear and accurate as possible, but miscommunication still happens. To avoid miscommunication, we must analyse the reasons. In chapter 2, we are discussing 6 major barriers to effective business communication, which are cliché, jargon, slang, sexist and racist language, euphemisms, and doublespeak.

Cliché

Cliché is “an idea, action, or habit that has become trite from overuse” (Collins English Dictionary 10th Edition, 2015). In communication, it refers to the language used by the communicator. Cliché usually is not straight forward to the main points, which makes the audiences bored and lose of interests, so no effective communication would

As a Chinese proverb says, “Difference in professions makes one feel worlds apart.” Beside different professional knowledge, I think different jargon is also one of the reasons. I’m working as a nurse in operating room, where staffs speak a lot of jargon. For example, “P1” case is the short form of “Priority one” case. These kinds of cases are life threatening emergency cases, so we need to get an emergency operating room as soon as possible and other “P2” and “P3” patients have to wait for these cases finish. If you are an interior designer, you won’t understand that.

If we are doing a presentation for a professional group, in order to have an effective communication we should avoid jargon from other professions, but we could pick up their own jargon to enhance better communication. If we are communicating with layman, we should avoid jargon.

In operating room, we have operating room technicians helping to push needed medical systems, usually they are big machines, in and out of OR, and also helping to position patients before operations. We have these two staffs A and B. Staff A is very good and know what he should prepare and get ready and he is helpful person, too. Some of us call him “Prof. A” to appreciate his help and hardworking. Staff B is as senior as A, but he is lazy and likes to loaf on the job. But we also call him “Prof. B”. Only the insiders know what’s going on, other people won’t tell the difference if they don’t know about the situation, which will make some misunderstanding. Therefore, in order to enhance effective communication we should avoid