In business, even a single miscommunication can result in a massive setback. Missed deadlines, lost opportunities, wasted time and money, employee and customer churn—these are just a few of the possible outcomes of poor business communication. While those outcomes may seem manageable, the costs of miscommunication can add up. In fact, miscommunication in the workplace costs US businesses an estimated $1.2 trillion every year.

Avoiding the high cost of poor communication means identifying the most significant barriers to effective business communication and taking steps to overcome them. First things first: Let’s take a look at what a communication barrier is and what types you might expect to find in your organization.

What Is a Communication Barrier?

A communication barrier is a disconnect that prevents a message from being received as intended. In some cases, the message may not reach its intended audience at all or may reach only part of the audience. In other cases, the message may be fragmented or poorly translated, or simply may have taken on a different meaning. You might be familiar with common physical barriers or language barriers, but in business communication, many of these barriers and biases are more nuanced.

Communication Barriers—and How to Overcome Them

What exactly gets in the way of effective communication? Many factors can impact our own messages and the way we perceive others’ communication. Some of the factors that lead to the most common communication barriers stem from different cultures and language differences. Others are more semantic in nature, stemming from small misperceptions in body language, facial expressions, or nonverbal communication. Now, add in generative AI, which introduces new issues related to effective communication, and thankfully, a host of new ways to overcome existing barriers. Let’s examine each of the major barriers to effective communication—what they are, what to look out for, and ways to overcome them.

Communication barrier: Lack of clarity and context

• What it is: Messages that are unclear, ambiguous, or lacking necessary context can lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations
• What to watch out for: Unclear expectations, vague instructions, or incomplete information
• Tips to overcome this barrier:
  • Encourage employees to ask questions and seek clarification when they encounter unclear or ambiguous messages
  • Invest in an AI-powered writing assistant that helps with clarity, conciseness, tone, and organizational context

Communication barrier: Information overload

• What it is: Excessive information or communication overload can overwhelm employees and make it challenging to prioritize or absorb essential messages
• What to watch out for: Decreased attention and focus or a failure to retain information due to too many emails, meetings, or notifications
• Tips to overcome this barrier:
  • Provide AI communication tools that help people write in a concise and focused manner to avoid overwhelming recipients
  • Create a culture of effective communication in which employees are encouraged to communicate better, not more

Communication barrier: Hierarchy and power dynamics

• What it is: Hierarchical structures and power differentials within organizations can create barriers to open communication
• What to watch out for: Employees who are reluctant to voice opinions, provide feedback, or raise concerns to higher-ranking individuals, fearing repercussions or backlash
• Tips to overcome this barrier:
  • Create opportunities for informal interactions between employees and leaders, such as coffee chats, lunch meetings, or town halls
  • Encourage leaders and managers to adopt open-door policies, inviting employees to share ideas, concerns, and feedback through open office hours, anonymous surveys, and team meetings

Communication barrier: Cultural differences and language barriers

• What it is: Differences in communication styles, norms, values, and language proficiency may lead to misunderstandings, misinterpretations, or cultural insensitivity
• What to watch out for: Frequent misunderstandings, complaints about lack of clarity, and disagreements about how to interpret a message, as well as stereotyping, ostracization, or other ethnocentric behaviors
• Tips to overcome this barrier:
  • Encourage team members to use clear, concise language and avoid the use of jargon, highly technical terms, figurative language, and slang
  • Provide adequate training and educational resources around industry-specific terminology and branded terms, including AI writing tools that are trained to provide culturally sensitive communication suggestions and recommendations
  • Implement regular cultural sensitivity training sessions and reinforce those learnings in a shared brand style guide that includes rules and expectations regarding internal communication and etiquette

Communication barrier: Poor communication channels

• What it is: Inadequate (or too many) communication channels or tools can hinder the flow of information within the organization, leading to delays, misunderstandings, and inefficiencies
• What to watch out for: Team members frequently using the wrong channels to share information or insights and vital information being lost or delayed because of how it is shared
• Tips to overcome this barrier:
  • Institute company policies on what channels are appropriate for different types of communication
  • Provide team members with adequate tools to communicate remotely
  • Use communication tools with many functions that easily fit into your brand’s existing structure and workflows

Communication barrier: Noise and distractions

• What it is: Environmental factors such as background noise, interruptions, or visual distractions in the workplace can disrupt communication and impair concentration
• What to watch out for: Complaints about difficulty concentrating or completing work
• Tips to overcome this barrier:
  • Establish designated quiet areas in an office or encourage time blocks for focused work to minimize distractions and interruptions
  • Provide a comfortable, collaborative office with a minimum of external noise and encourage the use of noise-canceling headphones to reduce the impact of environmental noise

Communication barrier: Emotional factors

• What it is: Emotional factors such as stress, anxiety, frustration, or conflict can impact listening skills, cloud judgment, and hinder empathy and understanding among team members
• What to watch out for: A lack of employee feedback or engagement, absenteeism, tense body language, or a lack of collaboration between team members or teams
• Tips to overcome this barrier:
  • Foster trust and solidarity by offering team-building exercises, mental health resources, and stress management workshops
  • Implement mandatory anti-harassment and conflict resolution trainings to help employees navigate challenging situations

Addressing these barriers requires proactive efforts to foster a communication-forward work culture. This involves not only providing appropriate training and resources but also investing in the right communication tools and channels.

5 Steps to Better Business Communication 

Overcoming communication barriers and enabling effective business communication is not just important; it’s foundational to your company’s success. You should think of improving communication as an essential business strategy, one that takes a comprehensive and proactive approach to ensure a standardized communication process across your organization. Here are the steps you should consider to enable effective communication org-wide:

1. Establish clear communication guidelines: Develop and communicate clear policies and guidelines for good communication within your company. This should include expectations around communication channels, frequency, tone, language, and etiquette to ensure consistency in all interactions. Provide support and resources, like a brand style guide, for all employees, including those working remotely or in dispersed teams. This can help to address communication breakdowns between teams and help everyone unify around a shared language and expectations.
2. Provide training, development, and resources: Offer training programs, workshops, and tools that facilitate effective communication and help to upskill employees. Provide guidance on active listening, conflict resolution, giving and receiving feedback, and cross-cultural communication to enhance interpersonal interactions and collaboration.
3. Offer the right communication channels: Provide a variety of communication channels and platforms to accommodate different preferences and needs and facilitate collaboration. But watch out for tool overload. Every tool should serve a specific purpose that all teams are aware of. Plus, it’s important to invest in tools that improve where you communicate and how you communicate.
4. Invest in a unified communication layer: Too many companies are investing in tools that help them communicate more when they really need to invest in a unified communication layer that aligns business communication across channels. An AI-powered communication assistant helps to enhance communication no matter where your employees are working. Look for a ubiquitous solution that can be customized to your brand guidelines and that tailors results to your organization’s context, tone, clarity, and fluency to create more consistent and effective communication across the entire company.
5. Evaluate and adapt: Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of communication efforts, measure the ROI of your tech stack, and solicit feedback from employees to identify areas for improvement. From there, you can adjust your communication strategies, channels, and practices based on feedback and changing needs to ensure ongoing improvement and alignment with business goals.

A standardized approach to effective communication is the only way that you will be able to set your entire company up for success. Communication is a skill that many of us wrongly take for granted, especially considering that there are varying educational backgrounds, language proficiencies, learning styles, and degrees of AI literacy in one organization. If your employees are not equipped with the necessary skills or tools to communicate effectively, it will take a toll on productivity, performance, customer and employee satisfaction, and, ultimately, the bottom line.

Overcoming Barriers of Communication With Grammarly

Effective business communication is how you will win in the age of AI, and Grammarly gives your business a competitive edge. Grammarly is your AI-powered communication assistant that both coaches and improves your team’s business communication skills. Beyond grammar, spelling, and punctuation, Grammarly delivers real-time suggestions within your workflows for improving clarity, tone, and engagement with every message, so your team can nail the right type of business communication every time.

Contact us to learn more about how to boost better business communication with Grammarly.