Why Smart People Have Poor Communication Skills – and What to Do About It

On October 23, 1990, David Pologruto, a high school physics teacher, was stabbed by his smart student Jason Haffizulla. Jason was not a teenager you think would try to kill someone. He got straight A’s and was determined to study medicine at Harvard, yet this was his downfall. His physics teacher gave Jason a B, a mark Jason believed would undermine his entrance to Harvard. After receiving his B, Jason took a butcher knife to school and stabbed his physics teacher before being reprimanded in a struggle.

Two years following the incident in a New York Times article covering this story, it was reported that Jason raised his grade average to 4.614, which exceeds the perfect average of 4, by taking advanced courses. He graduated with highest honors.

How can someone as smart as Jason do something so dumb? Jason received above perfect grades and still emotionally lost himself by trying to severely wound his teacher. The answer? Smart can be dumb. Smart is not communication-dumb because studies show there is little or no correlation between IQ and emotional intelligence, but in this article we’ll look at how logical intelligence can hurt a person’s emotional life.

This article may generate controversy, but I feel I give a balanced discussion in sharing my experience, knowledge, and getting you to think deeply about the topic. Whether you are intelligent, “mentally-challenged”, or curious about this topic in understanding those smart people in your life, I am sure you will get a lot of useful advice from this article.

Being a somewhat smart guy myself, it is painful to hear that intelligence – such a useful characteristic to possess – may be harmful. It is tough to imagine a quality highly praised by society is detrimental to communication. For this reason, take a deep breathe now, relax, and open your mind to the possibilities of bettering your communication to improve your life.

During my early university years, I regarded myself as an intelligent guy. I was no Einstein, but I got good marks in Mathematics, Physics, and other technical subjects. This lead me to start a degree in Engineering, majoring in Mechatronics, an area of study that integrates mechanics, electronics, and computing. I would be able to design robotics and cybernetic systems – the wave of the future. I thought such skills would surely give me an edge in life.

After one year of study with decent marks, I began to see two major classes of students. The first category of student turned up to few lectures, partied every weekend, enjoyed a great social life, and did minimal work to pass courses. The second category of students were intelligent, hard workers, got good grades, and were very focused on their studies. Surely these intelligent and hard-working students would fill the great jobs before the other, more lazier, class of student?

Not so. Students are often shocked upon graduation that their qualifications are not as important as they once thought. In school, students are lead to believe their academic knowledge is the primary determinat of a great job and success. Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences defines various types of intelligence and emphasizes that schools are too focused on logic and linguistic intelligence. Robert Kiyosaki in Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a more famous author that demotes the common belief that the government’s education system leads students to wealth and success. Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers contains further proof that IQ has very little correlation with achievement.

Graduates enter the workforce only to realize that co-workers hate them, less intelligent people are the ones receiving promotions, and sucking up to the boss doesn’t help their personal earnings. The students have the “hard skills” such as technical know-how, but they lack the “soft skills” such as conflict management and other human relational skills. The transition for intelligent people from being goal-oriented to process and people-oriented is usually realized through the hard school of knocks, experience.

If you have experience in hiring people, you know the importance of people skills. Educational skills are useless in some industries when people skills are absent. You can have great ideas, theories, and solve complex problems, but if you cannot effectively communicate that material in a persuasive and exciting manner by relating to your fellow human, you face an uphill battle in whatever challenges you encounter. It’s not that people dislike you because of your intelligence; it’s that people dislike you because you’re rude, not understanding, or annoying to be around. The intelligent person with poor communication skills is insensitive or unaware of other’s emotions.

Hopefully I can reveal the elusive obvious to you in this little exercise. I want you to think back to primary school or high school. Perhaps even college. Select the most memorable class to you.

I want you to categorize, and roughly rank, class members based on two sets of criteria: intelligence and popularity. You don’t need to go through every class member, but recall those at the end of each spectrum. That is, remember the smartest few in the class and the most popular few in the class. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, give a person a rank of ten in intelligence if you feel they were the most intelligent in the class. For the students who had lots of friends, give them a ten in the popularity category. Try to categorize roughly six students. If you have problems remembering, quickly write the ranks down on paper.

Now, with the students you have ranked in one category, I want you to rank them in the other category. So if you have ranked the smartest student as a ten in the intelligence category, give the person a rank you feel is appropriate in the popularity category. Do the same for the students you ranked in the popularity category.

Now that you have got several people in each of the two categories, think about the difference between each student. The purpose of doing this exercise is to help you see the contrast between intelligence and people skills.

Genius-Failure Paradox

Chances are if you are like most people and myself, you would have noticed something distinguishable from the exercise. Those who were smartest in the class were generally not very popular due to poor social skills. (I know there are other measurements of communication than only popularity). They did not have good people skills. Presumptuous? Likely, no.

All intelligent people do not have poor people skills nor does all unintelligent people have good people skills. I know people will say, “But I know someone who is smart and great with people.” Good. So do I. Intelligence and people skills are not mutually exclusive characteristics! Having one does not mean you cannot have the other.

What I’m proposing, which has been touched on and backed by a couple of authors and teachers, is that academically intelligent people fail in predictable areas of their lives – and they don’t want to solve the dilemma. The genius-failure paradox describes that people who must feel smarter, wealthier – or generally superior – to others refuse to seek help in dealing with people. (You can read more about superiority, inferiority, and the self-image.)

It is nothing new to say that intelligence does not equal success. Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence, says that IQ is too narrow to predicate success. The implications of emotional intelligence, which is summarized as an understanding of your emotions and the emotions of other people, are profound in communication and many areas of life. “Emotional Intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities,” says Goleman, “either facilitating or interfering with them.”

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About the Author

Joshua Uebergang, aka "Tower of Power", teaches social skills to help shy persons build friends and influence people. Visit his blog and sign-up free to get communication techniques, relationship-boosting strategies, and life-building tips by email, along with blog updates, and more! Go now to http://www.towerofpower.com.au/free/

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