Growing Edge
January 1, 1997
Is Dilbert on Your Board?
A New York Times bestseller may explain why church leadership is so tough.
I don't understand. My lay leaders work in the corporate world and daily deal with technology and change, yet our board just voted down a request for new software and tabled a recommendation to improve Sunday school.
If you identify with this statement, you may need to read The Dilbert Principle: a cubicle's-eye view of bosses, meetings, management fads, & other workplace afflictions (HarperCollins, $20, 335 pages) by Scott Adams. This humorous book will do more than make you laugh
Scott Adams has created Dilbert, the title character in a syndicated cartoon strip and a runaway bestseller book. This fictitious cartoon character symbolizes pain in the work place. Even Newsweek featured Dilbert on its cover with the headline "Work Is Hell." The issues addressed by Adams are the anger and frustration of white-collar workers, many of whom show up in church on Sunday
For seventeen years, Adams worked in an office cubicle similar to the one Dilbert occupies and deeply resents. The confining cubicle is one major symbol of the dehumanization in the corporate world. Adams makes a strong case that the corporate way of life is destructive for the employee and counterproductive for the corporation. In an interview with Newsweek, Adams says of his years in the corporate world, "I never once did anything that helped a customer."
Gallows humor
Most of Adams's humor is directed at upper-level managers who establish policy without thinking about what it does to the employee. In the chapter, "Great Lies of Management," Adams lists thirteen that managers tell their employees, including: (1) Employees are our most valuable asset, (2) I have an ...
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