Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

Communication barriers
The process of informational interaction between humans is very complex and involves a range of
different components, each one being intricate in its own way. That especially refers to conscious
verbal communication that assumes using certain verbal language.
First of all, it is not easy to transform an initial feeling or analogous idea (which emerges normally
in the right side of the brain) to the more or less definite discrete thought (in the left hemisphere).
One should apply language to formulate a thought out of sheer feeling, and the shape of the
thought will very much depend on the language that was used. It is like using pieces of glass to
form a mosaic. With different pieces in hand, the mosaic will be different, although the intention to
transform certain informational content may be the same. Thus, our thoughts or conscious ideas
are never the same as what we initially intended to formulate. Sometimes they come quite close;
sometimes we just cannot find words to say what we want to say, even to ourselves. Different
languages cause different opportunities and problems.
The second aspect is related to the content associated with the same worlds or sentences in
different cultures and sub-cultures. ‘White’ means ‘white’ in any language. But the meaningful
content associated with white may be different. In Russia it may be snow, winter, cold, vodka… In
Africa it would be sand and hot weather. A white dress for young women may represent the
wedding day in one culture, and a funeral in another. What does it means – ‘competitive salary’,
‘good command’, ‘fair compensation’ or ‘living together’? That is why common dictionaries are so
often useless. The thesaurus is needed. So, we not only use different words, we assign them
different meanings, depending on the supposed obvious links with other corresponding notions. In
the 1990’s, I was often asked by foreign colleagues to help them communicate with locals in
Lithuania or CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) despite the fact that these locals were
speaking much better English than me. Both sides used well-known words, but could not
understand one another, because they had learned conventional language, but had very different
backgrounds.
The third aspect is related to the works of the famous Georgian psychologist, Dimitri Uznadze, who
authored the well-known Theory of Attitude and Set. We all are full of specific attitudes and
settings that were created by our experience of interaction with a word when encountering certain
people, features, or events for the first time.
After an initial unhappy experience, because of a lousy cook, one may decide that frogs are not
tasty and never agree even to try them again. When asking somebody’s help one may face denial,
because of very justifiable reasons related to the moment, but anyway, the willingness to ask the
same person the next time diminishes.
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