Deusto Business School and 3M have released a report that focuses on the importance of a phenomenon that led the human being to the highest levels of excellence during the Renaissance, and that seems to be a key element for innovation in the digital era.

Polymathy is the capacity of reaching excellence in two or more areas of knowledge that belong to different expressions of human genius. It combines structures that may come from very diverse fields, such as the arts, sciences, business, sports, technology or the liberal arts.

Technological change and global competition generates more incentives than ever to innovate, and the digital economy is a proper field for polymaths to develop their dull talent, as a mind used to constantly question reality, with an ability to learn, and a capacity to find imaginative solutions, is particularly adequate for the new context.

According to Deusto and 3 M, the most valuables workers of the future will not be those who are the best engineers or programmers, but the polymaths.

Who are polymaths? They are people with “huge technical knowledge, but who are also capable of understanding the needs of a company and its clients”. The reason is that business success is determined not only by the degree of technological sophistication of its developments, but also by their “adaptation to people’s lives”.

Silicon Valley seems to be the region with the largest number of polymaths, these individuals who are revolutionizing and disrupting different industries.

Serial entrepreneurs, such as Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, are the Leonardo or Edison of the 21^st century. “Their success comes not only because they are specialists in a certain area, but because they can combine their business instinct with design, technology and science”, states the report.

This is a disruption in western society, which for the past two centuries has based on the paradigm of hyper-specialization. However, the digital age seems to demand “all terrain talents”, such as the ones that thrived during the Renaissance.

“Never before has the chance of developing polymathy been so possible, thanks to new technologies”, states the report. Nowadays, we can access any kind of knowledge not only through books and manuals, but through videos or MOOCs, provided by teachers from the best universities in the world.

Francisco González-Bree, professor of innovation at the Deusto Business School and co-author of the report, says that “innovation demands delving into the so called “Medici effect”, which seeks for innovation in the intersections of fields and disciplines. At Deusto Business School we encourage this pursuit and firmly believe that innovation is a key tool for business growth and sustainability”.

3M was the first company in the world to publish a report on polymathy. Experts from the company claim that “specialists have contributed to 3M with the most influential innovations; generalists have generated new ideas and patents; and polymaths have contributed not only by generating innovation, but also by applying these inventions to different areas of the organization, integrating them to different technologies and becoming the most valuables scientists of the company”.

According to this survey, both directors and organizations are re-discovering the value of promoting their teams with people that have a proper technical level and a strong knowledge in liberal arts, going from the STEM paradigm (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to the STEAM paradigm.

Finally, the report calls readers to reflect and show how, even in a hyper-specialized society, polymathy is a key innovation factor that is being used by many large companies that are setting the agenda.