3 Barriers to Effective Business Communication (Like, Share, And Engage In The Conversation)

There are three barriers to communication that are guaranteed to have an adverse effect on any well-established organization. They are:

1.    Positional Isolation 

2.    Organizational Silos 

3.    Institutional Irrational Exuberance. 

Whether you work in government, business or for a non-profit, these obstacles are sure to have a negative impact on your productivity and results. Let us consider each one in turn.     

Positional Isolation 

How can one make an informed decision without first being informed? It sounds like a ridiculous question, but it happens to senior leaders everywhere. One of the occupational hazards of leadership is Positional isolation. That is, relevant mission-critical information is prevented from getting to you as a result of your title or position within the organization. The cause of this may be self-inflicted, such as your own charisma. Or perhaps it is because your own Middle Management wants to justify their position within your chain of command. However, more often than not, it is because your employees are reluctant to provide candid and objective feedback for fear of a perceived diminution in their upward mobility within your organization. Either way, it can be a challenge for leaders as it pertains to the function of management. The solution may vary based upon your organizational context; but like Winston Churchill during World War II, leaders must intentionally build multiple channels of communication in order to reduce the negative effects of positional isolation. 

Organizational Silos

During the Industrial Revolution, Fredrick Winslow Taylor’s “Principles of Scientific Management”, worked great. However, in today’s knowledge economy his principles have created unnecessary costs to organizations both large and small. Organizational silos stifle organic growth, blind organizations to early warning signs of threats and have produced inaction. This is not to say that there is no place for functional departments, rather that if we are to modernize Taylor’s Principles, we must intentionally design platforms of engagement in order to meet the demands and challenges of our knowledge economy.  

Institutional Irrational Exuberance 

Some call it “Drinking the company Kool-Aid”, others call it “Being All in”. It is one thing to be passionate about your organization’s products or services. It is a wholly different matter to be irrationally exuberant about them. Put differently, devotion to your organization does not preclude you from having a healthy respect of both the established or the up and coming competition. After all, they wouldn’t be called “The Competition”, if your customers didn’t see a real or perceived value in their offerings. No man-made institution is guaranteed to last forever. Therefore, intellectually professionals must be realistically optimistic. That is, you must balance kindness with candor, humility with confidence and enthusiasm with the brutal facts. It is not the optimist nor the pessimist that ensures your organization’s enduring success. Rather, it is the intellectually flexible executive. These executives endeavor to identify and capitalize on the inherent opportunities found within every transient moment and will ultimately produce repeatable results for his or her organization. 

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About the Authors:

Dr. Paul Campbell is one of the co-founders of Brown Venture Group, LLC. Launched in 2018, Brown Venture Group, LLC is a venture studio venture capital firm exclusively for Black, Latino, and Native American technology startups. Brown Venture Group is writing a new playbook for both those interested in launching a minority-owned technology startup and those interested in investing in new technologies. For more information go to brownventuregroup.com.