I think there is alot of truth in this but from two different sides of dealing with data.

From the Users side:

They seem to focus on the whole forest without understanding the individual trees that make it up. This sometimes can cause them to come to wrong conclusions and expections about their data.

From the DBA side:

Obversely, we seem to start with the tree instead of looking at the overall forest. This can cause us to come to wrong conclusions about the overall purpose of the data. I have seen this many times in bad data design all over the place simply because the DBA didn't fully understand the overall purpose of what the data was to provide. He/she was looking just too close at the fine detail.

Sometimes not knowing the BIG picture, or not knowing the DETAIL, can really hurt you, but it all depends on what side of the aisle you are standing on. I always try to keep this in mind whenever I meet with DBA's versus when I meet with a roomful of users. Like a mentor of mine once said. "Travis, always keep in mind the audience of who you are talking to.". Words to live by in this business. 😀