Examining the culture of your own team

People talk about organizational culture (sometimes just “risk culture”), but too few are examining the culture of their own team.

As the leader of internal audit practitioners, I was very conscious of how my team behaved and the “culture” I had built that led to that behavior.

These are just some of the attributes I encouraged, which I would now (but didn’t then) think of as the team’s culture:

• Customer focus. We were committed to helping our customers in management and on the board lead the organization to success. I discouraged any desire simply to find fault. A clean audit report was something to celebrate.
• Partnership. In addition to the assurance we provided on the risks that mattered, we worked with management to ensure they had the best possible processes, systems, organization, and people. When there was an opportunity to upgrade them, we shared our advice and insights as we talked openly and constructively about how to make the right changes. We listened with an open mind. We got to know our customers
• Business focused. We might understand what were considered “best practices” or what had worked for others. We might understand what theory dictated. But we tried to understand…