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Which is more painful: an audit or spending the holidays with
Aunt Sally and her green Jell-O mold? Either way, your company
audit still looms in your mind, but it shouldn’t be that scary –
quite the opposite. Besides, even Sally “audits” herself when
she makes her mold, as she tests for thickness and taste. She
just wants to improve.
Fix the Problem
So what are you going to do about your company audit? How about
make an educated guess what the problem is, assign someone to
“fix” it, and sit back and relax…for another month or so? This
is just another short-term solution.
Tackle the Audit Head On
Instead, why not tackle the audit head on, and kick its butt. A
strange way to put it, maybe, but that’s how I see an audit
after attending an Internal Auditor Skills Class. Don’t get me
wrong, I still like managing by my own glorious opinion. But it
got me thinking that maybe the attitude of “just the facts,
ma’am” holds more water (and less hot air).
Close System Gaps
With role playing and actually writing up my own audit plans and
reports, I got to see why unarguable evidence is so crucial to
improving and even closing the gaps in a company’s system. It
becomes such a different world when you see firsthand all of the
scenes.
Of course, Les Cornelius, Quality Assurance Coordinator for Lee
BioSolutions, Inc., put it better than I could. “Role playing
and specific examples were helpful elements because they fully
exercise the brain in its learning capacity and help internalize
and retain the teachings”
Manage with Unarguable Evidence
But I asked myself, why these teachings? Why do you need
unarguable evidence, and why isn’t our best guess good enough?
It’s because I saw that without unarguable evidence, we will
manage by the seat of our pants and just argue back and forth
our subjective opinions instead of discovering what is factually
true. We will never accomplish anything with certainty, and we
could do the wrong thing that could set you back even further.
Measure Performance Improvement
But as with anything, the proof is in the pudding, so what are
the results? In the class, I saw numerous examples proving that
managing by objective evidence leads to better and higher
performance. And this leads to measurable improvement of the
whole system. Simple yet complex. Complex yet simple.
Conduct Your Own Audit
In a nutshell, if you’re only going to take one in the next few
months to help improve your job and company, I’d highly
recommend an Internal Auditor Skills Class. You will come away
with the knowledge to conduct an internal audit and improve your
company’s system. And, maybe more importantly, you can face your
fears – and hopefully avoid Aunt Sally’s mold.
About Author :
Chris Anderson is co-author of policies and procedures manual
products, producing the layout, process design and
implementation to increase performance. He is currently the
Managing Director of Bizmanualz, Inc. Visit: Bizmanualz, Inc.
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