In last week’s column, I told the story of Janie, a single mom, whose job was to pack automotive mufflers into shipping crates. Although Janie saw herself as lacking any appreciable skill, the story she told about how she organized the process of getting her three children ready for school on time each day revealed extraordinary organizational and process improvement skills, which she was overlooking. If you haven’t read that column, you may want to click here first to understand the complete background for this week’s article.

And, now for the rest of the story.

Janie was one of those memorable people who years later had worked her way into the recesses of my memory bank. Then one day she came to the forefront of my mind when I met a doctor who expressed how frustrated he was with the hospital where he was employed. He related that he was an obstetrician who frequently found himself reaching for an instrument in a critical care situation which was not in the drawer or on the cart where it should have been — absolutely should have been. 

He then related a recent story of him running down the hall in search of a critical device, which was in a string of similar incidents causing him to be so frustrated that he was questioning his employment and career decsions. (Side note: That hospital, located in another state, is now under new management, and the situation described has been corrected.)

As I was listening to this doctor’s story, Janie came to mind. She had the core competencies to ensure this doctor and every staff member in that hospital would have exactly what they needed when and where they needed it. Janie, who saw herself as ordinary, was in fact potentially the perfect person to be an important part of a critical care team.

I understand that packing mufflers is a vital and necessary job function; thank goodness for those people who do so. However, let’s not overlook the question of asking how a person’s core competencies may be expanded and put to even a greater use in another setting. The question is not only, “What are you good at?” The question for this week is “Where might your core competencies be further challenged and used for an even greater good?”

Send your career-related questions to me at nsynko@SynkoAssociates.com. To learn more, visit our website at Synko Associates or follow this column each Monday in AnnArbor.com.