Help Isn’t Coming, You’re The Help

You may have already figured this out, but part of coming of age is realizing that help isn’t coming; you’re the help.

You were at one time dependent on adults at first. They raise you, teach you, provide or withhold snacks, enforce the rules, coach the teams, etc. Mandatory schooling implies children are lacking. This is how I once viewed it anyways. Children are low agency where adults are high agency. The idea of growing up is that children eventually become independent people.

The year was 2014; I was a few years into my career post-college. The physical traits of a child were no longer there but I still hadn’t shaken all the little boys’ beliefs.

I came up with an idea for project at work that I knew would be a needle mover. It excited me and I was determined to will it into existence. But to get it approved, management would need to share my vision as well.

It seemed like a good idea to bring in a senior engineer as a credible project sponsor; senior engineering sponsors might raise the project’s status and aid in obtaining approval from on high. A few years in, I was still drinking from a firehose.

It’s an enticing idea to utilize project sponsors; they use their good name to help it gain acceptance while reducing your workload—smarter not harder so they say.

There were two senior engineers who could sponsor. I explained the project details to both and could tell they were onboard. Yet I sensed that the details and nuances weren’t etched in their bones like they were mine— and perhaps rightfully so. They hadn’t invested weeks to understand the constraints, benefits and trade-offs like I, a junior engineer, had. They weren’t working evenings on this project. They had no allegiance to it other than I’d asked them for help.

These creeping doubts muddied the water. If they were pitching the project on my behalf and management challenged them on key project details, would my sponsors have the project fluency and passion to fight for my baby like I would?

Here was my fork-in-the-road moment. Asking senior engineers to stepmother my project along wasn’t foolproof. But if I took charge, my lesser status and limited organizational knowledge was a risk. Increaseth agency and becometh the adult or stayeth the child?

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

At some point in life, you have the insight that all adults were children once. And you realize that, willingly or unwillingly, somewhere along the way they grew up (or many did anyways). This was that somewhere for me.

“And I want to remember it, I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond. A diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought of the genius of that the genius of that, the genius. The will to do that.” - Colonel Kurtz, Apocalypse Now

After carefully considering both paths, I knew I didn’t want to “lose” with someone else was in the game, when I could be out there instead. I’d lead the charge. Help wasn’t coming, I was the help.

This cognitive leap is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, taking on more responsibility reduced dependence, which I would find freeing. On the other, more responsibility means more work, more accountability and possibly a stressful period of constantly overcoming.

A Project with Two Masters Starves

I went on to set up the necessary meetings and spread the good word, utilizing sponsors where I could. I made sure to communicate my vision. It took several iterations of meetings to get management to come around, perhaps rightfully so. In the end, the project was approved and funded.

By being the front man for my ideas, it put me in the room where decisions would be made. I was able to chart, firsthand, uncharted territory (for me), which would later help me navigate the organization and its politics for subsequent pitches. These were all unintended favorable consequences of me leading the charge.

As a byproduct of my journey, I came to understand that nobody cares more about your project than you (in psychology this is called the endowment effect) no matter how good it looks. Some people struggle with this and are frustrated when others can’t see how good their baby is. I also eventually learned about the idea of high agency people, who I prefer to resemble.

Although the ultimate lesson for me was: Help wasn’t coming; I was the help.

Author’s Note:

Nathaniel Branden said this is one of the things he hangs up in his counseling rooms (“No one is coming to save me”.

“He who increaseth agency, increaseth sorrow”