The One Way Mirror - Communication Conflict
The One-Way Mirror of Perceptions
In general, a polymath looking at a monomath looks through a one-way mirror.
On a simplistic level, if what a monomath “knows about” is a subset of the things that a polymath “knows about”, then the monomath can only understand the part of a polymath that is contained within the monomaths’ context.
Because of this, a monomath looking at a polymath sees their own reflection.
A Monomath Sees their reflection in the one-way mirror
Communication Conflict
This one-way mirror creates two types of communication conflict.
First, the monomath can perceive the polymath as being “bossy” or “not making sense” when they talk.
Second, the polymath can perceive the monomath as “not seeing all the angles” and rapidly become frustrated with the need to explain in great detail.
How to Overcome the One-Way Mirror?
There are a few simple steps that a person with either type of thought-style can take to achieve more effective communication.
Polymaths talking to Monomaths can slow down and explain their thought process steps of how a particular conclusion was reached. Because Polymaths are making use of knowledge very efficiently, it is easy for them to forget that others do not have the same knowledge and have not made the same connections between disparate thoughts.
A Polymaths way of being can be interpreted by others as the false consensus effect leading to judgement of the Polymath by a Monomat as “egotistical”
Monomaths working with Polymaths can work on being tolerant of the fact that that Polymaths may have connected some dots that the monomath does not know exists. Instead of labeling the polymath as ‘intimidating’, ‘arrogant’, or ‘bossy’, the monomath can simply ask the polymath to explain the thought process steps.
A Monomath’s inability to understand a Polymath could be due to the availability heuristic in that we make judgement based only on the information we have available at hand.
Additional Soft-Factors
There are other factors that can ease this communication challenge, such as emotional intelligence (high IQ), and the level of trust that the Monomath provides to others. And for the Polymath, compassion, patience and the ability to gently influence is important.
When the compassionate (high E.Q.) Monomath listens to a Polymath speak, that Monomath has gained an understanding that the Polymath sees and perceives things across multiple disciplines, space and time that the Monomath cannot see, and so they listen with patience and trust.
When a Polymath is explaining a future state without slowing down enough to explain the steps to a non-compassionate (low E.Q. or low-trust) Monomath – that Monomath will say things to a Polymath such as “stop being negative” , “why are you operating on so many levels at once”, and “why are you so bossy”
