Why Smart People Have Poor Communication Skills – and What to Do About It
It Begins at Childhood
A study titled Reading Difficulties, Behavior, and Social Status published in the Journal of Educational Psychology, found that 81% of children referred to aggression and social behaviour as the number one reason for disliking another child. As children age, the researchers found that a child’s academic performance increased their peer acceptance.
The study also found that achievement and other factors are influential to peer acceptance. We do need to keep in mind that peer acceptance does not equate to only social skills. Peer acceptance can increase due to one variable that is completely unrelated to communication. What we can take out of this study is that right from the beginning of our social interactions, we are liked or dislike based on our behaviour and social skills.
Herpreet Kaur Grewal in an article titled Lack of Social Skills Can Make Poor Even Poorer, refers to a study done by the Institute for Public Policy Research. The study confirms that the economy makes interpersonal skills as important as academic skills. Grewal says, “Those with good social skills born into poor families are 14% more likely to be well-off by age 30 than a similarly under-privileged person with average social skills.” The study presents a few interesting points that are worth noting for the purpose of this article.
Firstly, social skills and other communication skills were found to be more important later in life. Maybe you’ve experienced the same thing. When you were young, you could get away with yelling at other kids. You could evenl fight with little or no repercussions. However, should you punch someone at work in the face tomorrow (I hope I haven’t given you any ideas) because of your inability to resolve conflict, the quality of your professional and personal life will suffer.
A second finding from the study of interest to us is that the best way children can develop the communication skills required for life are through organized activities. These groups should have children of diverse ages, experiences, and interests, as well as adult leaders that provide guidance to the young group. The adult leaders typically have a goal they want the children to achieve together. Team sports are a good example of activities that fit the described criteria to help children develop their social skills. Even for mature adults, interacting with diverse individuals improves their communication skills because it requires a person to adapt and understand different people.
The implications of these findings on this article are vague, but I present them to you for your curiosity. Do smarter people participate in fewer organized activities that fit the criteria of developing children’s social skills? Do smarter people participate in more singular extra-curricular activities like learning to play a musical instrument? Is their a trade-off between social interaction and increasing your intelligence? Do the less-intelligent individuals spend their time in these socially-beneficial activities instead of studying?
One thing we do know is that social skills, and other communication skills, need to be practised on a frequent basis. While people can naturally have the gift of the gab, be emotionally intelligent, or win friends very easily, communication skills atrophy without practice.
I’ve repeatedly seen a person with poor communication skills experience a cyclic effect. Their poor communication thwarts them from putting themselves in situations that require those communication skills, which further decreases their social skills. Should a person have poor communication skills during their developmental and independent years, I believe they struggle to improve the skill for several reasons – mostly an over-reliance on their intellect.
A Logical Downfall
Intelligent people solve problems with their superior logic. The individuals use rational thinking to eliminate problems. A dilemma arises when they attempt to solve an emotional problem with their logic.
The logic dilemma is partly given birth from intelligent people’s love for information. Locating information makes their life easier. With the Internet being a superhighway for information, intelligent people are inclined to read, learn, and analyse their issues via the World Wide Web. (Maybe that’s why you’re reading this article).
However, communication skills are skills. Communication skills are not information. Any skill develops through practice. If you are an intelligent person, I still want you to learn about communication skills, but know that acting on your knowledge is more likely to be a bottleneck in your personal development than gathering more information.
Back to the logic dilemma, people are an illogical formula. For the smart people who do not understand that, if people were a formula they would be defined by 1 + 1 = 3. Logic and intelligence cannot explain the complexities of human emotion. Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, emphasizes the importance of emotion in human relations and the little influence logic has on our behavior. “When dealing with people,” says Carnegie, “remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”
In my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program, I define two distinguishing behaviors of people that fall into the logical trap. Firstly is a common mistake we all make: we point out the obvious. Stating the obvious is frustrating and emotionally ignorant. Some examples include:
- “Breaking up with someone is tough. Don’t worry, there’s the right person for you out there some where.” – We all know there is someone out there for us. The trouble is finding them.
- “I can’t believe you burnt my toast. That’s stupid.” – Do you really think he or she burned the toast on purpose?
- “Wow. I’m so sorry to hear about the burglar breaking into your car. You really should have locked your doors.” – Thanks for the advice. Idiot!
The second common logical mistake is making factual statements. People make the factual statement mistake when they talk about an emotional issue with logic and rational. An indicator of this type of mistake is when someone says, “You don’t get it” or “You’re missing the point”.
As an example of the factual statement mistake, Jill is talking to her good friend Michael, an intelligent guy, about her recent break up. Jill begins to “open herself up” and discuss her broken relationship. The emotions she communicates are uncomfortable to Michael. As is common with smart people, Michael perceives Jill’s affliction and his own discomfort in clear terms. He does not see muddled emotions. He sees pain; not resentment and anguish; or hatred; not partial likeness and hatred.
Michael wants to resolve Jill’s hurt. In his black and white world, Michael sees clear emotions, problems, and provides a solution. He thinks giving her advice is best for her wellbeing. He may use his intelligence to give advice, provide reassurance, or create some other communication barrier. Intelligent people see problems and provide solutions – a harmful formula for human relations.
The logical-driven communication used by Michael frustrates Jill. Jill isn’t after a solution; she wants someone to empathize with her and understand what she feels, but Michael is blinded from thinking too much. He is too intent on resolving problems and providing advice. (My Communication Secrets of Powerful People program teaches you how to focus on emotions in extreme depth like no other program I’ve come across.)
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Update: "Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath." Michael Caine
Thanks for this great information. it seems really powerful.
Wonderful article…you hit the nail on the head about so many things. This article helped me identify mistakes I’ve been making in my communication and in my attitude towards people for years.
Your article is true and to the point. It helped me understand myself more. In addition, my workplace (a Junior College), is littered with intelligent people who have little or NO social skills. They also know how to mis-communicate very well… it is bad, very bad. They have no use for people’s emotions, and I long to retire.
Best..
Cap
Hi Joshua, this is one of the most interesting articles I have ever read. It has very profound facts derived from research and that’s good work. I agree with you that at later years of life one needs more of social skills than intelligence. Also, I am happy to know that I can learn something from anyone whether they are intelligent or not.
You are doing good work and please help us “intelligent” people to appreciate social and communication skills.
God Bless you.
Dear Joshua,
Thanks so much for sending me this article. It is logical that most intelligent people have poor communication skills since they seldom relate with others except their own kind. And so, their problem solving is often on the rational level and not on the experiential. They cannot speak all what are in their minds because their mental processing is too fast that it difficult to grasp all at one time.
I enjoyed reading your article. It is fortunate that I am in the field of applied social science and at times, there are technical people who come to me for help on conveying their research findings in a manner understandable to ordinary people in affected communities. Despite that, I learned much from your article.
More power to you and congratulations for this article. I know that you are being used by God for others to learn.
Tess
Hi Josh, would you think that having good communication skills has a greater advantage than having a higher than average IQ?
Hi Joshua, great work you made my day, l had to read it out to my fellow workers who are having problems here, l now realise why less intelligent people get promotion more than us who are smart!!
Thanks a billion, no a trillion!!!
I don’t think all intelligent people look down on others as inferior. Sometimes they just do not know where to begin since they are only taught to excel. Maybe with such articles, there will be a remarkable improvement in the social life of intelligent people. Let us just try to be there for them and not cast them to hell like it is of their own making to be very intelligent. Also, please forward the article to as many people as possible.
Thank you Joshua
Thank you, that was a great article. I found a lot of useful information for myself and I think many others will as well. One thought though – who is actually “intelligent” and by whose standards? I think to make your point more understandable it helped to label some as “intelligent people”, but IQ tests and academic achievement alone don’t always prove that so-called “intelligent people” are more logically proficient than “less intelligent people”. We all possess different skills of different magnitudes and nobody owns an intellotometer that I know of. If you are able to use your brain to manipulate, motivate, and inspire others, isn’t that a sign of “intelligence”?
I really liked the article, but I have my own personal struggle with how people label one another. It may seem pretentious, seeing that to distinguish one group from another you sometimes need labels, but I think the intelligent and unintelligent groups have a lot of overlap.
That’s why I liked the bit on “dropping the ego”. People shouldn’t always assume that they are more intelligent than another based on occupation, income, or schooling. Like you said, there are lots of lessons humanity has to offer, and assuming that oneself is more intelligent than another may lead to a predisposed attitude that doesn’t allow oneself to fully take in and appreciate all there is to be learned by someone, say… less than “intelligent”.
Thank you again for the article. There is no doubt that maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships is a key to success. Your mention of dropping the ego is a good reminder for me, not that I’m so egotisical, but we all need to remember that sometimes other people can make us better and smarter people.
Thanks guys for your insightful feedback. It’s always nice to hear everyone’s thoughts and experiences on the topics I write about.
Geoffery, I’m glad you found it that interesting!
Brian, yes. Not all intelligent people look down on those who are less intelligent. I’ve been guilty a tonne of times though. The inferiority complex can suck bad and make people be very judgmental of others. There’s constant comparing of people.
Niki, personally I think good communication skills will get you a lot further in many areas than just a high IQ. The intelligence quotient often just predicts educational achievement. Education doesn’t mean much on its own. Having said that, some people succeed in vocations like mathematics with a high IQ and poor communication. Generally, good communication and emotional skills will take you further. CEOs get hired for their intelligence and fired for their personality.
Get Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence if you’d like to learn more about IQ and interpersonal skills. Emotional Intelligence is a groundbreaking book that amplified the worldwide shift from IQ making or breaking your success to emotional intelligence
Robert Sternberg, a Yale University Professor of Psychology, has a book called Successful Intelligence: How Practical and Creative Intelligence Determine Success in Life. You’ll learn some good things by just reading the reviews on Amazon and what the book is about.
Here’s additional links that may be of further interest:
- The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
- Just For Youth… Is Intelligence the Most Important Factor for Success
Alex, yeah. I don’t have any definite “model” of what intelligence is. Many people have differing opinions. In the article I mostly referred to intelligence as academic performance. Thanks for your insightful comment.