“But, I am back to my original question,” Marsha wanted to know. “How many skills can a person be good at?”

“You can be good at as many skills as you have time to practice,” I said. “Right now, you are good at the technical stuff that flows through your department?”

“Yes,” Marsha replied. “Because I practice. We get problems every day that have to be solved. We get technical bulletins all the time that we have to pay attention to.”

“If you focus on this new department, it is a different skill set, with a learning curve. What will happen to your technical skills related to the work in your current department? You will stop reading the technical bulletins, you will stop solving those technical problems. As you practice new skills, your old skills will begin to go away. You can only be good at as many skills as you have time to practice.”