If you’ve never read the Dilbert comic strip, you’re missing out. It’s really funny.
The comic pokes fun at the craziness of corporate culture – culture that stifles productivity, fosters laziness and awards incompetence. The cartoon’s observations of human behavior – though caricaturized – are remarkably astute (and not all that exaggerated).
In one strip, Dilbert is meeting with his Pointy-Haired Boss and the company CEO to update them on a recurring set of internal business issues.
“I found the root cause of our problems,” says Dilbert.
“It’s people. They’re buggy.”
They sure are.
I sure am.
We are the root cause of nearly all of our problems.
We are the root cause of our greatest miscommunications. We are the root cause of a lot of unresolved conflict. We are the root cause of most of our relational breakdowns.
We are all buggy.
It doesn’t do us any good to pretend otherwise.
So, let’s be gracious with one another.
Let’s not be so hard on the flaws of other people.
Let's, instead, spend a little more time working on ours.
We might just change everything.