Where Are The Renaissance Men?

I graduated from Wayne State University in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies. The degree focused on many disciplines (hence the name) but challenged you to solve problems using the skills students acquired along the way. Upon graduating I matriculated into Wayne State University Law School. During this time I got involved in many groups and had many jobs that added to my professional tool kit.

Through each endeavor I became aware of how organizations were unaware of the talents their employees possessed or were willing to use them. Narrow vision of management seemed to limit or constrict employees to one job description when the talent of the individual was expansive. To illustrate the point, in basketball, a team would never limit a player to one position if they have demonstrated the ability to impact the game in other positions. In fact, Earvin "Magic" Johnson once played all five positions on the basketball court during his rookie season and during the NBA Finals because he could. However, if you took a conservative approach to his job designation of a Point Guard, Johnson should not have done so. However, the goal was to win a championship and so all of Johnson's talents were deployed. The question proposed is do you know who your multi-talented team members are and are you utilizing your multi-talented employees to win?

The problem with many organizations today is their inability to identify and/or more specifically acknowledge employees with multiple talents that expand beyond their hired job description. I am often asked what is the main job of a CEO? My answer remains the same. The main role of a CEO is to identify talent for the organization. If they are able to do so then every challenge or opportunity will work itself out. In building a talented team CEOs often face an unknown obstacle. What to do when or if they come across a Polymath? What is a Polymath, you ask? A Polymath also known as a Renaissance Man. An individual who possesses many talents and has demonstrated a mastery of them in their discipline.

The idea of a polymath is as old as humanity, but the term itself was coined by Orit Ganiesh, who is the CEO of Bain Consulting. Her definition of it is:

“Someone who has the ability and curiosity to master and collect expertise in many different disciplines, industries, skills, capabilities, countries, and topics. He or she can then, without necessarily even realizing it, but often by design: Draw on that palette of diverse knowledge to recognize patterns and connect the dots across multiple areas. Drill deep to focus and perfect the thinking.“

A few centuries ago these men were famous for their prowess in multiple fields, including the arts, science, mathematics, politics, and linguistics. In the 20th Century they were considered to be inventors and poets, astronauts and authors, explorers and celebrities. These are modern day renaissance men, the modern day incarnations of people like Leonardo da Vinci leave their mark upon society but what about on an organization? Is there a need or a desire for a Polymath in today's business organization?

The role of a polymath is not in the trenches, doing the routine work, but instead high on top, doing the strategic thinking and making crucial decisions. This is where their expertise is needed.

Hopefully, by now you are convinced you of the value of polymaths. Yet, one question remains. How can your organization benefit from having them?

Well, that’s the whole point of this article, to give you the tools that you need in order to identify and support an expert-generalist to help your organization or department smash through their goals and achieve amazing results.

1) They possess the meta-skills

The 80/20 rule (or the Pareto Principle) states that 80% of the effects come from only 20% of the causes. This means that you can get 80% of the things in this world done just by learning a small tool set.

There are certain what I call meta-skills that will give you the ability to work across disciplines. If your recruit has these, then you are more than halfway there.

The two critical meta-skills that you need to determine the candidate possesses are: learn how to learn, and learn how to think.

Of course there are not the only two meta-skills that you need to learn. These are key for you in order to come up with ideas and then be able to combine them and use them at the right moment, but you also need a variety of soft skills in order to push your ideas.

One of the greatest polymath thinkers of all time, James Hutton, came up with the concept of deep time (the Earth is millions of years old) and the basic principles of geology. The problem was that he was not able to sell his idea. His ideas only gained traction after his death through the work of some of his friends, who were much better persuaders and marketers than him.

Often, a good idea never makes it through, not because it is not the best idea out there, but because it was not sold in the right way. Being able to persuade people and market your idea is very important. Persuasion is one of the key meta-skills that you need to master.

“If you just communicate you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles.” Jim Rohn

2) They teach others how to learn

A great example of someone who mastered the art of learning is Josh Waitzkin. He started off as a chess prodigy, a mental discipline, but then also managed to become a Tai Chi Push Hands World Champion, as well as a high level Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner, both physical disciplines.

Here are some of his key principles:

Josh Waitzkin and his Art of Learning.

One way to learn about a certain subject quickly is to try to understand the main concepts of each discipline. You pick a subject, break it down into smaller parts (chunking), and then try to see which parts are the most important to learn.

Once again, you will find that by learning 20% of the most important parts, you can cover like 80% of the subject. Once you have mastered this base, you can go on to either explore the different parts of that subject in a deeper way or maybe you can start learning an entirely new subject.

The key to learning effectively and efficiently is to know which techniques work the best for different situations. Read this article to find out which are the best learning techniques rated according to a scientific study:

10 learning techniques rated according to a scientific study.

3) They teach others how to think

Thinking is about taking information as inputs and then coming up with a decision. This entire process is dependent upon the initial assumptions that you are making.

A very important prerequisite for a polymath is to be open-minded. They are aware of the assumptions people make and why they are making them.

Another thing that you need to keep in mind is the fact that as humans we are all prone to falling for cognitive biases. The polymath takes into account that fallibility is inherent in all humans and people won’t stop making them.

4) They help others to see connections

The greatest advantage of a polymath, is that he can see connections where others can’t. He develops sort of a sixth-sense and an ability to apply different mental models in a variety of situations.

The way to develop this ability to see connections is by reading a lot of books. What many successful innovators have in common is that they read a lot. Reading allows them to get access to new ideas and knowledge, which they can then use later. For example, Elon Musk reads up to two books a day!

Another way is just to have broad life experiences. To quote Steve Jobs:

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.

That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity.

A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.“

A polymath is often referred to as a Renaissance Man. He has a broad knowledge of a lot of disciplines, but also a deep knowledge of a selected few. This allows him to take knowledge from different sources and apply it in new and unique ways.

5) Apply

A polymath is a person who can take knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines and then apply it in order to solve a particular problem.

A polymath will always ask themselves: can this be done better, faster, more efficiently?

This is something that I did when I was working at my first management job while in law school. I combined my formal education along with my experience as a skilled tradesman and union rep to develop new operational management models which proposed a savings of over a million dollars. I saw things weren’t being done in the most efficient manner and I brought in my knowledge and willingness to learn in order to improve the entire process.

You might not be the smartest person in the room or the most knowledgeable on a certain subject, but the ability to combine different things could give you a distinct advantage.

As Scott Adams, the creator of “Dilbert”, says:

“Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average stand up comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.“

As a polymath, you have this ability to combine different strands of knowledge and skills, which can then result in something unique. Being an expert in a particular subject requires long hours of deliberate practice, but as an expert-generalist, your knowledge of several different subject can give you an advantage in certain things.

A polymath is someone who can make connections, who is better at judging causes and effects. They can take things from one discipline and apply them in another. They can also apply different mental models when a specific situation requires it.

Polymaths skills are very useful in a world where systems-thinking is gaining prominence. It is very important to see something as a whole than just a sum of its parts. Often systems behave differently than the individual things that make them up.

These types of skills are becoming more valuable as the world grows more connected, and more complex. Today’s world requires a different type of thinking. That’s why the same types of skills that made Renaissance Men successful in centuries long past are making a comeback and can be a competitive advantage in today’s society.

Besides, as Charlie Munger says, it’s fun to out think people who might be smarter than you.