It Wasn’t My Baby

An adorable and very content baby, much sturdier than most metaphorical babies.

I've spent a fair bit of time around babies lately, both real and metaphorical.

The real ones are adorable and fun to hold, especially when you don't have to change their diapers.

They’re also easy to recognize.

Metaphorical babies, not so much. They look like plans, projects, ideas, or calendar dates.

Recently, I gave feedback on a project with an ambitious timeline. I suggested adding four weeks.

To me, it was practical. Projects like this rarely finish when we hope they will.

To them, it wasn't simply four weeks on a calendar. It was a challenge to three months of work and, more importantly, to their judgment.

By recommending a different timeline, I had inadvertently called their baby ugly.

I just hadn't known it was their baby.

I thought distance gave me objectivity. On one hand, it did. I could see the risk more easily because I wasn't bearing everything else.

On the other, I was missing something. The hours they had already invested, the commitments they'd made, and the people they'd already told. I couldn't see how much of themselves was tied to the end date.

The distance that helped me see the schedule more clearly kept me from seeing what it really meant.

My feedback didn't arrive as an input. It arrived as a verdict.

The project is still underway. Maybe it lands on time. Maybe it needs the four weeks. Either way, the outcome may tell us who was closer. It won't change what that date meant to them.

Before offering a new timeline, I should have tried to understand what the old one represented. What were they most afraid of losing?

The four weeks might not have changed. But the way I offered them up would have.

Sometimes you don't realize it's someone's baby until you call it ugly.