How  do you overcome communication problems in your business? Business coach Ray McCreadie says: "Have you ever heard the statement “we have a communications problem in the business and HR needs to take care of it.” The thinking behind this is that communications is a “soft” issue. This soft label is a convenient way to hide a problem. But hiding it does not make it go away. Unsolved problems fester, get bigger and come back to bite vigorously. Usually nothing soft more like hard unwanted costs.

According to a recent Forbes article, some of the common communication barriers in business include:

1. Lack of communication - not providing employees with adequate information can produce a disgruntled team. However, if you provide your team with consistent and clear communications, employee engagement increases. Transparency goes a long way and will make your people feel part of a team, and when that happens, they become more engaged in their work and with the organisation.

2. Information overload - too much information can be a bad thing too because when you overwhelm people with an abundance of data, instructions, or news, it becomes white noise or a fog which hides the true nature of the communication. Streamlining emails and having a point and getting to it quickly and concisely can help avoid this problem.

3. Unorganised flow of information - can also cause confusion, leaving workers unsure of which tasks to prioritise. Therefore, it is important that a top-down communication process is agreed within an organisation to keep the flow of information moving in a single direction.

4. Differences in communication skills - can lead to frustration among employees and teams. Insufficient knowledge of a subject leads to confusion among staff. Information overload leads to communication fatigue.

5. Poor communication - inevitably causes misunderstandings, confusion, and conflicts that hinder productivity and professional relationships. In today’s diverse business environment, effective communication skills will set you apart from your peers and competitors.

If you are experiencing any of these communication barriers, it is important to address them to improve communication and reduce confusion in your business. Just like safety and quality we are all responsible for communication.

The use of a Fishbone or Ishikawa diagram can be helpful in identifying potential contributors to miscommunication. A Fishbone diagram is a tool that shows the cause-and-effect relationship for a quality problem. It has a fish-like shape with the problem on the right side of the head and the probable causes on the left side of the spine. The probable causes are usually categorised into six categories: People, Process, Product, Place, Procedure, and Policy.

It is often used in root cause analysis, to troubleshoot issues in quality management or product development. To be clear, the importance of finding and correcting typical communication errors is due to the physical impact these can have on a project, supply chain or operation. When something goes wrong and excess costs are incurred, where a misunderstanding might have contributed,

A bigger contributor to the communication issues that is often missed is silence. This can mean that something known is not being shared. Perhaps because of secretive agendas, silo thinking, or lack of “joined-up” thinking. Why is this a problem? Because every stakeholder is not on the same page. The safety of your colleagues can be in danger when a near miss or hazard is not communicated. Your customer might finally decide to jump to a competitor when a potential quality risk is not brought up. A promised deliverydate can be compromised if a known critical detail might impact lea time but is not mentioned.

Next step is to measure how effective communication is in your business. There are several ways to measure the effectiveness of communication, such as:

• Employee surveys

• Email open rates

• Intranet analytics

• Focus groups

• Turnover rates

• Work performance

• Social media engagement

• To conclude, effective communication can be a powerful tool in various aspects of life. It involves conveying information in a clear, understandable, and meaningful way to achieve mutual understanding between the participants. Effective communication can help create a healthy workplace culture, reduce misunderstandings, boost team building, improve retention, encourage innovation, remove conflict, and enhance employee engagement."