Your question about audits is a good one. How can we avoid being in defensive mode when being under the microscope of the annual IT audit? I recently began an audit kick-off meeting with a story from Toyota [1]. I heard it from a colleague years ago who studied it as one the famous Harvard B-School case studies.
As a quick read of Consumers Reports shows, Toyota has enjoyed a long history as one of the top-rated companies for quality and repair history. Finding flaws in Toyotas has become particularly difficult. Here's where the story grabbed my interest. It seems that anyone on the Toyota assembly line can stop the line if they discover a problem. Everyone is empowered to do this for even the smallest problem. I imagined a big red button that anyone could run up to and hit with the heel of their hand, cause the assembly line to screech to a halt, with alarm bells sounding.
What happened next, my friend reported, was so unexpected: they threw a party! Why throw a party when a problem was found? Because it represented a rare opportunity to ratchet up the quality another notch, to improve an already near perfect car in a way that may have been otherwise missed. That was cause for celebration!
So when you look at your upcoming audit, look at it as an opportunity to improve a good department, to make things even better. Embrace the scrutiny as a an occasion to change for the good, not to discover the bad. |