أهلا وسهلا بكم في منتدى المراجع المصرى/المحاسب القانونى محمد صفوت نتمنى لكم اجمل الاوقات برفقتنا
ضع وصفاً للصورة الأولى الصغيره هنا1 ضع وصفاً للصورة الثانية الصغيره هنا2 ضع وصفاً للصورة الثالثه الصغيره هنا3 ضع وصفاً للصورة الرابعه الصغيره هنا4
العودة   منتدى المراجع المصرى/المحاسب القانونى محمد صفوت > منتديات المراجعه > منتدى المراجعه الداخليه
« آخـــر الـــمـــشـــاركــــات »
         :: مفهوم الدعم والمقاومة (آخر رد :دعاء يوسف علي)       :: أفضل أنواع التداول (آخر رد :دعاء يوسف علي)       :: خطوات التسجيل في فرنسي تداول (آخر رد :دعاء يوسف علي)       :: شروط تسجيل عضوية بموقع حراج (آخر رد :دعاء يوسف علي)       :: رسوم الحساب الاستثماري في تداول الراجحي (آخر رد :دعاء يوسف علي)       :: اعتماد العزل (آخر رد :مروة مصطفي)       :: شركة امتلاك (آخر رد :مروة مصطفي)       :: كيفية شراء الاسهم الامريكية الحلال (آخر رد :سلمي علي)       :: طريقة تحويل العملات المختلفة (آخر رد :سلمي علي)       :: حجابات شيفون (آخر رد :سلمي علي)      

إضافة رد
 
أدوات الموضوع انواع عرض الموضوع
  #1  
قديم 12-23-2016, 03:56 PM
عبقرينو عبقرينو غير متواجد حالياً
عضو مميز
 
تاريخ التسجيل: Jan 2013
المشاركات: 2,036
افتراضي internal auditors-haring difficult messages is an unavoidable part of the job













​If there is anything worse than getting bad news, it may be delivering it. No one relishes the awkward, difficult, anxiety-producing exercise of relaying messages that may hurt, humiliate, or upset someone with whom the deliverer has a relationship. And it is often a thankless task. This was recognized at least as far back as Sophocles, who wrote in the tragic play Antigone almost 2,500 years ago, “Nobody loves the messenger who brings bad news.”

Physicians — who are sometimes required to deliver worse news than most professionals ever will — often engage in many hours of classwork and practical experience studying and role-playing how to have difficult conversations with patients and their families. They know that the message, itself, may be devastating, but how they deliver it can help the patient and his or her family begin to process it.

Internal auditors are in the fortunate position of not having to deliver news that is quite so shattering. Nevertheless, there is no question that certain audit observations can be difficult to convey and to receive. Learning how to prepare for and deliver such messages can create a better internal auditor.

Laying the Groundwork

Preparation to deliver difficult messages should begin well in advance, even before there is any bad news to deliver. “If the first time you see the client is to tell them about a problem, that in itself is a problem,” Theresa Grafenstine, inspector general of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., says. “At that point, you have no credibility in their eyes and they have no basis to trust you. You’ve created an uphill climb for yourself. However, if you’ve invested time in building a relationship before that difficult meeting, they’re more likely to listen to you because they’ll understand your values, intent, and motivations.”

Robert Berry, executive director of internal audit at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, points out that many audit–client communication missteps are due to internal audit’s mismanagement of the evolution of audit exception to issue. “Where most auditors fail is that they don’t bring management into the fold until an exception becomes an issue,” he explains. “We can’t afford to leave clients out of the process until the end.”

Berry’s solution is continuous communication via weekly updates to clients from the moment exceptions are noted. Communication starts at the lowest pertinent level in the organizational chain, with the person who owns the process that is under review, and his or her supervisor. Then, as the audit progresses, that upward reporting continues to the highest level of accountability for the issue. In his experience, this approach tends to engage clients in investigating the exception items and working with the auditor to determine if the exceptions are truly issues.

However, despite best efforts in building relationships and staying in regular contact with clients, some meetings will involve conveying difficult news. In those cases, preparation is critical to accomplishing objectives while dealing with fallout.

Being fact-based is the best approach, according to Alyssa Martin, partner in charge of Risk Advisory Services and executive partner at Dallas-based Weaver LLC. “Be fair and factual,” she says. “I find when those receiving the message typically become upset, it’s because they think they aren’t being looked at objectively. Focusing on facts helps with that.”

Before presenting to clients, internal auditors should ask others whose judgment they trust to review all the deductions and conclusions they’ve drawn on the facts to test whether their arguments hold up.

Rod Winters, retired general auditor for Microsoft in Seattle and former chairman of The IIA’s Global Board of Directors, suggests focusing on process as well as content. Process is professionally performing the work, self-preparation for delivering the message, explaining the conclusions in meaningful and realistic ways, and anticipating the consequences and possible response of the person receiving the message. Content is having the right data and valid conclusions so the message is correct and complete.

Self-preparation involves considering the type of person who is receiving the difficult message and determining the best approach. Some people want to hear the bottom line first and the supporting information after that; others want to see a methodical building of the case item by item, with the conclusion at the end. Some are best appealed to via logic; others need a more empathetic delivery. Discussions guided by the appropriate approach are more likely to be productive. Martin’s company goes as far as to tailor its message delivery to personality preferences by using personality profiles like the DISC approach, which characterizes individuals as one of four types with a predominant trait: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance. The individual’s category tends to drive how he or she wants to receive information, interacts with others, and values things and people. When there is critical information that has to be understood and accepted, Martin considers tailored delivery critical.

During the Discussion

Once the groundwork has been laid, it’s time to have the discussion (see “What Not to Do” at right). If this part of the process is mishandled, it can render all the careful preparation moot, so it is important to remember to:

  • Seek opportunities to balance the discussion by recognizing the processes that are working well and those areas that are not.
  • Offer to help or ask how you can help address the issues raised in the discussion.
  • Make it clear that you understand the client’s challenges. If feasible, suggest some possible causes for the problem; it may make the client feel better and enable him or her to focus on fixing the problem.
  • Maintain open body language, recommends Manny Rosenfeld, senior vice president of Internal Audit, MoneyGram International Inc., in Dallas. Avoid crossing your arms, don’t place your hands over your mouth or on your face, and keep your palms facing each other or slightly upwards instead of downwards. Don’t lean forward or it will seem extra aggressive. Breathe deeply and evenly. If possible, mimic the body language of the message recipient, as long as the recipient is remaining calm. If the recipient begins to show signs of defensiveness or strong aggression, and your efforts to calm the situation are not successful, you might suggest a follow-up meeting for both of you to digest what was said and consider mutually acceptable options.
  • Use self-deprecating humor, if it comes naturally to you. It can help defuse a sensitive situation.
  • Present the bottom-line message three times in different ways so people have time to absorb it.
  • Let the client vent. Berry warns against a tendency to interrupt the client’s remarks to “explain why we believe we are right.” He says allowing the client time to vent frees him or her to get down to business afterward.
  • Focus on problems with the process, not people problems.
  • Demonstrate empathy. Take time to think about what’s going through the person’s mind and help him or her think through the issue and how it occurred, what’s going to happen next, and how it will be resolved. Empathy can turn an adversary into a partner.


“The goal is to get the problem fixed, not persecute somebody,” Rosenfeld says. “Let the client know that your main objective is not to make him or her look bad. You just want to help improve an important area for the company.”
When It’s Not a Discussion

By the nature of the job, internal auditors cannot limit delivery of bad news to face-to-face discussions; sooner or later, it must be delivered in written form, primarily via the audit report.

“If the audit report is the first time a client is seeing something in writing, that is the first and biggest mistake,” Berry notes. “Verbal updates are great, but periodic written updates go a long way.”

Once the report is in the client’s hands, many internal auditors offer the client the opportunity to request minor changes to the report, under strict conditions. Winters has done so, and explains, “I have great respect for operating management and the pressures it is under. I like to give them as much input into the report as possible, as long as it does not change the conclusion, blunt the clarity of the message, or deflect ownership of the issue.” Grafenstine echoes that approach, noting: “Auditors use certain terms so often that we become insulated against them. We forget it is possible to deliver the same message another way.”

That other way may involve minimizing the use of emphasizers in the report and verbally. For example, use “inacurate” instead of “very inaccurate” or “critical” instead of “highly critical.” Understatement can help keep emotional responses in check .

Many internal audit departments include a management response section in audit reports, even going so far as to help management craft the response based on internal audit’s understanding of the board’s perspective. This means focusing on what happened, what is going to be done about it and when, and how the board will know the issue is resolved. Working with managers on this part of the report may help them feel that their job is to resolve the issue, not fight it.

Avoiding the Pitfalls

Delivering difficult information is a minefield, and there are ample opportunities to take a wrong step and see explosive results.
“Internal auditors are used to giving bad news and can become very good at it,” Martin says. “But it makes people uncomfortable, so the internal auditor, in turn, becomes uncomfortable.” She says the most common errors internal auditors commit in their communications arise as a result of their desire to avoid conflict and discomfort. The two errors she cites: softening communications (e.g., offering excuses for why the failure occurred and avoiding the tough, straightforward language that is needed to get a message across) and reading the written report to the client. “When you are reading, you are not communicating.”

Another area that can represent a pitfall is failure to keep the verbal report and the written report in sync. In the face-to-face meeting, it is human nature to be empathetic, soften the message, and smooth over some of the rough edges that are in the written report. However, this sort of softening in the meeting can make the written report, with all the direct language intact, an unpleasant surprise, and can cause the recipient to feel betrayed or tricked.

Grafenstine notes the difficult task of finding a balance between empathy and getting the message across. “My approach is not to beat around the bush,” she says. “Be direct, but not accusatory.” She also points to the importance of understanding the culture of the organization. For example, she notes, words that are perfectly acceptable in one place may not be so elsewhere. “In my case, a good example is the term ‘e-discovery.’ In most places it’s fine, but its potential impact on protections provided under Article 1 of the Constitution gives it a completely different meaning on Capitol Hill.”

Emotional intelligence — understanding how to read people and relate to them — also helps in delivering difficult messages effectively. This is not an innate trait for many people, and it is a difficult one to learn, as are many of the so-called soft skills. Yet they are critical to the practice of internal auditing.

“In my experience, auditors rarely get in trouble over their technical skills because those are easier to master,” Rosenfeld says. “They get in trouble over insufficient soft skills. College degrees and professional certifications are all aimed at the technical skills. Sadly, very little is done to help auditors with the equally critical soft skills.”

Watching a mentor deliver difficult messages or deal with emotional people is also an effective ways to absorb good practices. Role-playing of potentially troublesome presentations to a friendly group (say, the internal audit staff) is another way to exercise one’s skills.

Delivering bad news is largely a matter of practice and experience, and it’s not something internal auditors have the choice to avoid. As Winters explains, “At the end of the day, you need to deliver the news and ensure they understand it. But your underlying objective is to ensure the issue is remediated, the associated risk is understood and effectively mitigated, and you have built an appropriate relationship going forward so you can do your job objectively and effectively.”
Setting the Standard on Communications
This excerpt from section 2400 of The IIA’s International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing addresses appropriate practices relating to communication. The newly revised version of the Standards, including the wording below, becomes effective Jan. 1, 2017. Refer to the Standards for additional detail.

2400 – Communicating Results Internal auditors must communicate the results of engagements.
2410 – Criteria for Communicating International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing Communications must include the engagement’s objectives, scope, and results.
2410.A1 – Final communication of engagement results must include applicable conclusions, as well as applicable recommendations and/or action plans. Where appropriate, the internal auditors’ opinion should be provided. An opinion must take into account the expectations of senior management, the board, and other stakeholders and must be supported by sufficient, reliable, relevant, and useful information.
2410.A2 – Internal auditors are encouraged to acknowledge satisfactory performance in engagement communications.
2410.A3 – When releasing engagement results to parties outside the organization, the communication must include limitations on distribution and use of the results.
2410.C1 – Communication of the progress and results of consulting engagements will vary in form and content depending upon the nature of the engagement and the needs of the client.
2420 – Quality of Communications Communications must be accurate, objective, clear, concise, constructive, complete, and timely.
2421 – Errors and Omissions If a final communication contains a significant error or omission, the chief audit executive must communicate corrected information to all parties who received the original communication.

ساعد في نشر والارتقاء بنا عبر مشاركة رأيك في الفيس بوك

رد مع اقتباس
إضافة رد

أدوات الموضوع
انواع عرض الموضوع

تعليمات المشاركة
لا تستطيع إضافة مواضيع جديدة
لا تستطيع الرد على المواضيع
لا تستطيع إرفاق ملفات
لا تستطيع تعديل مشاركاتك

BB code is متاحة
كود [IMG] متاحة
كود HTML معطلة

الانتقال السريع

Facebook Comments by: ABDU_GO - شركة الإبداع الرقمية
كافة الحقوق محفوظة لـ منتدى المراجع المصرى/المحاسب القانونى محمد صفوت