Function Barrier
Maintaining harmony  Low levels of trust and openness
 Division
 Individualism and low levels of team spirit

Trust and Openness
Although harmony depends on good communication, even the best of interpersonal communication is unable to communicate completely the thoughts, feelings and emotions of all the parties involved. My words cannot fully express my feelings and my words will mean different things to my listeners as they interpret my words from their own experiences and frameworks.

Barriers to openness:

 Organisation culture
 Family background
 Fear of knowing self
 Fear of closeness
 Fear of rejection / punishment
 Fear of being ashamed
 Hidden agenda

A second barrier to open communication is the fact that, for a variety of reasons, I may not want you to know all that I am feeling or thinking, so I hold back and do not communication openly.

Communication is a two way process and so open communication requires not only open messages from the sender, but open messages in return from the receivers. Even when the sender is struggling to send open messages, the receivers may not respond with the same openness. Self disclosure does not come easy to us and good communication needs us to disclose, at times, our feelings and motivations.

Over disclosure can also be a problem. If I talk too much about my feelings in a culture which cannot handle feelings well, then people will put up filters and barriers to my messages.

Sharing ourselves more deeply in our communications requires us to overcome a number of barriers. We must recognise that culture plays a large part in setting the quality of interpersonal relationship. Some organisations are very open and show their unity and affection easily - these cultures may also feel free to express less positive emotions such as hurt, disappointment and anger. On the other hand, some organisations are very closed, not showing emotions or perhaps showing only the negative or positive sides. Churches are the same - in some you are free to express emotion, in others you are not.

Sharing our feelings with others is one way of exploring and experiencing our own feelings more deeply, but some of us will be afraid of that inward journey. We do not want to get in touch with parts of ourselves which we have successfully or unsuccessfully tried to avoid. Open communication puts us at risk of not only reaching out but also reaching in to feelings which we perhaps do not want to face. Yet we cannot establish interpersonal harmony and peace if we do not know peace and harmony within ourselves.

Division
Tension, conflict and division prevent efficient communication. There are many resources which cover this area.

lndividualism and Team Spirit
We have already seen that some cultures foster the cult of individualism- each person does what is right in his or her own eyes. Building the unity of the body requires that we overcome the egocentric behaviour which puts ourselves first.

Open, truthful and loving communication causes us to grow:
 up into Christ
 in wholeness
 in a jointed manner
 together
 in a supportive manner
 building one another up
 as we work.