Core Competence and the Home

What is my core competence ? At my work place the answer is very clear : Communications.

I am however a great believer in transporting corporate concepts home. Like I always tell my wife “My strategic vision is to provide a stable revenue stream for the family which then leverages it for present and future benefits.” My wife is very happy to go alongwith my strategic vision and agrees that implementation of this vision is through the exercise of my professional core competence –communications.

She has an entirely different point of view when it comes to my definition of core competence when I am at home. I regard my core competence when I am at home as relaxing which when distilled further means eating, sleeping, playing with baby, and not doing anything else.
She terms me an employable resource when I am at home. There are things that husbands must do when they are at home—go to the chakki and get the atta and not do too—watch TV , sleep and generally relax. She complains that despite her repeatedly saying so I do not work at home and continue to eat, sleep and drink at home. I have often pointed out to her what Gary Hamel and C K Prahalad had said in their seminal work on core competence : A core competence is built through a process of continuous improvement and enhancement. Meaning more of doing nothing at home.

My wife throws back another concept from Hamel & Prahalad:core competencies must not be allowed to develop in to core rigidities. Anyway she tells me with great conviction that what I am displaying at home is pure incompetence, core or otherwise. The argument at the moment rests there. Like a good husband I have decided not to win an argument but focus on core competencies.