Filtering refers to a sender’s purposely manipulating information so the receiver will see it more favorably. A manager who tells his boss what he feels the boss wants to hear is filtering information.

The more vertical levels in the organization’s hierarchy, the more opportunities there are for filtering. But some filtering will occur wherever there are status differences. Factors such as fear of conveying bad news and the desire to please the boss often lead employees to tell their superiors what they think they want to hear, thus distorting upward communications.

Selective perception is important because the receivers in the communication process selectively see and hear based on their needs, motivations, experience, background, and other personal characteristics. Receivers also project their interests and expectations into communications as they decode them. For example, an employment interviewer who expects a female job applicant to put her family ahead of her career is likely to see that characteristic in all female applicants, regardless of whether any of the women actually feel that way. As we said in Chapter 6, we don’t see reality; we interpret what we see and call it reality.

Individuals have a finite capacity for processing data. When the information we have to work with exceeds our processing capacity, the result is information overload. We’ve seen in this text that dealing with it has become a huge challenge for individuals and for organizations. It’s a challenge you can manage, to some degree, by following the steps outlined earlier in this chapter.

What happens when individuals have more information than they can sort and use? They tend to select, ignore, pass over, or forget it. Or they may put off further processing until the overload situation ends. In any case, lost information and less effective communication results, making it all the more important to deal well with overload.

More generally, as an Intel study shows, it may make sense to connect less frequently to technology, to, in the words of one article, “avoid letting the drumbeat of digital missives constantly shake up and reorder to-do lists.”30 One radical way is to limit the number of devices you access. For example, Coors Brewing executive Frits van Paasschen jettisoned his desktop computer in favor of mobile devices only, and Eli Lilly & Co. moved its sales teams from laptops plus other devices to just iPads. Both these moves have resulted in increased productivity.31

You may interpret the same message differently when you’re angry or distraught than when you’re happy. For example, individuals in positive moods are more confident about their opinions after reading a persuasive message, so well-designed arguments have a stronger impact on their opinions.32 People in negative moods are more likely to scrutinize messages in greater detail, whereas those in positive moods tend to accept communications at face value.33 Extreme emotions such as jubilation or depression are most likely to hinder effective communication. In such instances, we are most prone to disregard our rational and objective thinking processes and substitute emotional judgments.

Even when we’re communicating in the same language, words mean different things to different people. Age and context are two of the biggest factors that influence such differences. For example, when business consultant Michael Schiller asked his 15-year-old daughter where she was going with friends, he said, “You need to recognize your ARAs and measure against them.” Schiller said that in response, his daughter “looked at him like he was from outer space.”34 (ARA stands for accountability, responsibility, and authority.) Those new to corporate lingo may find acronyms such as ARA, words such as deliverables (verifiable outcomes of a project), and phrases such as get the low-hanging fruit (deal with the easiest parts first) bewildering, in the same way parents may be mystified by teen slang.35

It’s easy to ignore silence or lack of communication because it is defined by the absence of information. This is often a mistake—silence itself can be the message to communicate non-interest or inability to deal with a topic. Silence can also be a simple outcome of information overload, or a delaying period for considering a response. For whatever reasons, research suggests using silence and withholding communication are common and problematic.36 One survey found that more than 85 percent of managers reported remaining silent about at least one issue of significant concern.37 The impact of silence can be organizationally detrimental. Employee silence can mean managers lack information about ongoing operational problems; management silence can leave employees bewildered. Silence regarding discrimination, harassment, corruption, and misconduct means top management cannot take action to eliminate problematic behavior.

An estimated 5 to 20 percent of the population suffers debilitating communication apprehension, or social anxiety.38 These people experience undue tension and anxiety in oral communication, written communication, or both.39 They may find it extremely difficult to talk with others face to face or become extremely anxious when they have to use the phone, relying on memos or e-mails when a phone call would be faster and more appropriate.

Oral-communication apprehensives avoid situations, such as teaching, for which oral communication is a dominant requirement.40 But almost all jobs require some oral communication. Of greater concern is evidence that high oral-communication apprehensives distort the communication demands of their jobs in order to minimize the need for communication. Be aware that some people severely limit their oral communication and rationalize their actions by telling themselves communicating isn’t necessary for them to do their job effectively.

The final barrier to effective communication is outright misrepresentation of information, or lying. People differ in their definition of a lie. For example, is deliberately withholding information about a mistake a lie, or do you have to actively deny your role in the mistake to pass the threshold? While the definition of a lie befuddles ethicists and social scientists, there is no denying the prevalence of lying. People may tell one to two lies per day, with some individuals telling considerably more.41 Compounded across a large organization, this is an enormous amount of deception happening every day. Evidence shows people are more comfortable lying over the phone than face-to-face, and more comfortable lying in e-mails than when they have to write with pen and paper.42