You know the expression, “think outside the box?”
Well, over the years I have met many risk and audit leaders who did just that.
They came into a new position and formed then led a function that was creative and well-received by top management and the board.
However, they fell in love with their creation.
They thought they had found the answer.
But the world is changing and so are the questions.
What might have been outstanding when established can become barely adequate, if that, over time.
That time may even be as short as a year or two!
What these leaders have done is build a new box around themselves: a box built with the ideas of the past.
Successful leaders are constantly challenging themselves and fixing things even if they are not broken – yet.
They listen to new ideas and techniques, not blindly but with an appropriate level of skepticism and openness.
As you know, I have written here and in my books that the practices of internal audit and risk management need to change.
The practices that worked well in the past don’t help our leaders and the organization to succeed.
The old style of creating and then managing a list of risks, or a static audit plan composed of audits of locations and processes instead of how enterprise risks are managed, needs to be vigorously discarded.
When I speak at…
