What is a polymath and why become one?
If you are discovering what is a polymath (or what a T-shaped professional is), we will cover here what and why to become a polymath professional.
A polymath is a person who understands a lot of subjects, in terms of knowledge. With the world becoming more complex, organizations are demanding more and more of this type of professionals.
What makes T-shaped individuals so effective at what they do is that they are immensely empathetic to other areas — not having that myopic vision that many have, having a keen sense of the perspectives of others. A polymath can see through the eyes of others, walk in their shoes, actively listen and create solutions that are based on their ideas.
Today’s world needs to know what is a polymath.
Here is what happens: in marketing, you work with a wide range of experts to create great ideas for your campaign. Content producers, media strategists, organizational consultants — these are just a few among many. In theory, a group of experts has all the knowledge and skills necessary to face major challenges.
In practice, however, it often happens that a meeting of great experts is not enough. You also need polymath people. They have deep experience in one area, but they can also speak up to par to specialists in many others. In addition to being an expert, they are also somewhat generalists. Like the letter T, they go deep in one area, but also broaden to the sides.
We polymaths have a special ability, a general knowledge of other related areas and a hunger to learn and grow. How about that?
Polymaths act as the glue that brings together a team of experts to achieve great collective victories.
Leave a comment if you feel like you’re a polymath and why!
So, why become a polymath professional?
1. Polymaths see the big picture.
Polymaths receive ideas and suggestions from all team members and put it together into a vision of the future. They are not just dependent on a competence and therefore can look beyond information alone and consider other influential factors. Their perspective is much broader than someone responsible for deep knowledge in just one area.
For example, experts who focus on developing a digital product, such as a website, may not understand the intricacies of an effective integrated media campaign targeting that digital product. Connecting these two elements of the broader customer experience means that both can be optimized towards a common goal: to direct viewers to turn into qualified leads for conversion.
Polymath can see how product and service offerings fit together to create greater value for the customer. They can bring the right people together to share information and to define a vision.
One way to find out if someone can be a polymath is if he or she has a natural sense of curiosity. To continually expand one’s experience beyond their core competencies, a person must have an insatiable appetite for more information and perspectives.
2. They build bridges.
A polymath has the ability to navigate more complex or rigid structures that arise in companies, extracting disorganized or split information.
With their sense of responsibility, they contact and ask the right technical questions to the various experts in order to contribute to the whole. Often, they also act as mediators between experts with strong opinions.
They guide individuals to make appropriate concessions for the “greater common good”. In addition, with their deep understanding of how their specialty can contribute to the overall plan, they can provide additional information as specific questions or answers arise.
Once a team is aligned with a plan, the T-shaped person can help sell the idea to the rest of the organization. As someone who works with experts in various fields, you can weave a story to help capture the interest and eventual participation of others.
3. They adapt their communication approach.
As someone who deals with many different personalities and areas of focus, a T-shaped professional can train team members on how to work better together and improve communication styles.
Polymaths adapt their style and language when talking to different team members. So they understand what works best when connecting with a creative, a brand strategist or any other area of focus. If a problem arises between two or more experts, T-shaped team members can assist each person put their fears away and help them understand and sympathize with the other’s point of view.
The role that polymaths play on a daily basis forces them to be the main communicators. Their behavior serves as a positive example for the team, improving other people’s communication skills in the long run.
Why do you need to know what os a polymath and become one?
Although the concept of T-shaped skills is not new, it is now more important than ever. In the last decade, the need for today’s young professionals to have deep disciplinary knowledge, in addition to a strong ability to communicate across social, cultural and economic boundaries, has been emphasized.
Specialization is extremely important, but sometimes it also creates problematic cores. On the other hand, acting as a generalist, a jack of all trades, without deep knowledge in a specific area, will not be enough in competitive and rapidly evolving sectors.
Here is what happens: in a Harvard Business Review article, the authors note that generalists are not as productive or effective as specialists in fast-paced environments: “We theorized that the benefits of being a generalist are strongest in fields with a slower pace of change”, the article states. How about that?
A team needs to find a balance of skill sets to maximize creativity and effectiveness. Obviously, there is no single approach to the team’s structure. However, it is important to recognize that a polymath brings a different vision, strategy and social skills to a company. Encouraging a culture of continuous learning and open communication supports the development of professionals in T-shaped career paths.
Organizations must recognize the knowledge of each individual, but also encourage them to experiment new things and interact regularly with other groups. It’s in everyone’s best interest to integrate growth and sharing into the company’s culture. This will end up generating more T-shaped professionals.
Some proof that organizations require polymath professionals.
Today, many college and university graduates are trained to be productive in a field, but employers are placing an increasing importance on skills that go beyond a single discipline or focus. These polymath professionals are highly sought after for their ability to innovate, build relationships, advance research and strengthen their organizations.
After graduation, students should be able to handle information from various sources, promote professional relationships in different organizations, contribute with innovative ideas to organizational practices and communicate with understanding in social, cultural, economic and scientific disciplines.
The professionals of the future will build their careers in a world in constant change, with different technologies than we have today, and will have to connect all the dots that we’re not even seeing right now.
Big employers like IBM, Google and Cisco are leading initiatives to hire polymaths. This concept states that the ideal employee has a series of skills that allow them to collaborate, as well as unparalleled knowledge of a skill, process, product or body of work.
For example, IBM is experimenting with ways to digitize and code a candidate’s curriculum to assess his “T score”. A study experience abroad, for example, may indicate cultural sensitivity, while a leadership role in a student organization can show management skills.
Nowadays, technical skills are still more important, but social skills (or soft skills) are critical, as assessed by senior executives in the 2018 study “The Future of Jobs”, by the World Economic Forum. The skills that are on the rise are analytical thinking, active learning and creativity. Declining skills are manual precision, memory, auditory and spatial skills and management of material and financial resources.
Like we say in my hometown: better than that, just twice that.
The article’s treasure:
In this article entitled “What is a polymath and why become a polymath professional?”, you have seen:
- What is a polymath professional: a person who understands various areas, also called a T-shaped professional.
- The three great benefits of being a polymath professional: we have the ability to see the big picture, given our knowledge of various areas; to connect the dots while knowing how to interact at a higher level of technical conversation and to adapt our language to deal with different areas.
- The world is in need of polymath professionals: in an increasingly complex world, balancing specialists with polymaths will be the best solution to create a competitive advantage and to be able to deal with how information is different from what is taught in college. Further reading: Here are 5 ways for workers to win in the robot age, by World Economic Forum.
Leave a comment if you feel like you’re a polymath and why!
Always look both ways. See you in the future.
