To err is CEO, to forgive is the Board! i.e., when we’re talking humans! There’re and there might as well be AI operated CEOs; been there seen that! Luckily for the CEO, the Board was all human and another chance was given. But chances are only given when they’re available!
And many a times the mistakes are goof ups, blunders, not just because of their potential exposure but because of the magnanimity exhibited behind sheer stupidity. Something might start out as an error, a misjudgment of sorts, a pure misunderstanding etc. but soon turn into a blatant example of idiocy, simply because it’s the CEO’s understanding that matters and the CEO can’t be wrong.
Yet sometimes the mistakes are indeed blunders from the outset, simply because of the sheer incompetence of the people running the show. And because earlier mistakes were ignored and let go off. People become confident with their own abilities to mess around and because of the trust placed in them by the incompetents.
And when it is about who runs the show, the buck always stops at the CEO. And if the peak point for incompetence also converges at that level, we get what is known as a shitshow! Well, a paradise for internal auditors, if you may! Though internal auditors might be divided on how they may perceive the impacts of this shitshow on their work.
There would be some inclined towards how this would ensure their elation through fraud discoveries, for instance and others leaning towards waging a struggle for entity’s sustenance which becomes almost impossible, because policies and procedures are being trampled and systems are witnessing regression. In both cases, the auditors can get comfy and enjoy the show while it lasts!
Yeah, while it lasts. Because such a show can’t and must not go on forever! There won’t be anything left to show except for the newspaper archives or annals of history if that too matters! When sustenance isn’t in focus, nothing is. You might have a euphoric run and a steep climb in terms of revenues or profits for a while or so but nothing to back it up and ensure it lasts.
Hence the chances, only when these are available. And that availability is only possible owing to risk capacity that in itself is a measure of sustainability. An entity can only be resilient if it has got a significant asset base to flaunt, have no threats to its liquidity and is making at least adequate net earnings.
These are traits of a sustainable first and growing entity. Not the traits of an entity led by incompetents witnessing a shitshow where the assets are prone to misappropriation and misuse, pilferages are commonplace, liquidity is threatened and earnings hardly breakeven.
And that’s exactly what happens when policies and procedures meant to safeguard the assets, to ensure working capital requirements are always met and to ensure earnings to put viability on an upward trajectory are not understood, are trampled and are violated. Final nail in the coffin? Putting code of ethics / conduct to death by rewarding the violators and perpetrators.
And again, whose ability to understand when its non-existent matters? On whose ultimate watch, policies and procedures can get trampled and violated? And who has the ability to, instead of ensuring accountability, let the perpetrators off the hook?
The top management executive of course, the high and mighty CEO. The type who is a self-styled leader but does not even have managerial credentials! Yeah, one has to have excellent management credentials to take on a leadership role. Because as I have laid bare my experience and my belief time and again in my blogs, a leader leads by example.
Someone, who doesn’t even have managerial credentials, cannot set any examples! You cannot set an example if you have done nothing, controlled nothing and delivered nothing. Because that’s exactly what managers do. They’ve to be doers, be in control and deliver what’s required of them. Only then they’re and should be considered for elevation to senior roles.
What do the entrepreneurs do when they start up? Do they have dozens of people from the outset, or do they do a lot of the work themselves? Don’t they give their startups the shape, structure and systems by doing, controlling and delivering and setting teams by training them in examples of their own?
But some incompetents get lucky and towards the end of this blogpost I would reveal how. They get lucky in assuming executive decision making positions, even after having zero or failed management credentials. But they’re certainly good at something else to get scot-free and that helps them develop inflated egos.
Certainly, the bigger the position, the bigger the ego. The bigger the ego, the smaller the person! And even smaller, the grey matter that’s responsible for cognitive function. And that’s where we get to the goof ups part. They let the mistakes run their course to morph into bigger, crazier and ‘better’ stuff!
You know stuff like equating unauthorized personal use of officially allocated employer owned assets to an employee governed by policies with salary! Ignoring falsified reporting by an employee to the regulator because it wasn’t habitual! Elevating a habitual violator of the employees code of conduct to executive management positions! Questioning the reason behind termination of conformances with standards when these could have been faked on ceased operations!
And that’s not all!
Appointing officials who have recorded history of misconduct to other employees inquiry committees! Modifying / Twisting official minutes of Board meetings for own benefit! Ignoring Internal Audit’s caution and advisory and drawing daggers when it escalates the matters to the Board! Using AI to compare delivery against Audit strategies of advisory and assurance when advisory services had to be suspended since the entity was facing going concern issues and when the strategies and plans were approved by the Board!
Again, been there, seen that!
But the costliest of all these mistakes was indeed ignoring the only sane voice, maybe because in order to exhibit themselves as some sort of strategists, this particular type of CEOs believe sanity holds them back from the greats they could achieve and ‘trusted’ to achieve! Only time tells that a fall could also be great!
That sole sane voice was that of internal audit and professional internal auditors never hold it back when it comes to impairment of GRC systems of the entities they serve! That’s our mandate!
But I thank thee for letting me into the ring for a fight I never knew was on! For it allowed me elation, elevation and a comfortable win. I utilized a game plan from thee own playbook. I’m a quick leaner! I’m battle hardened now and my threshold for enduring management’s stupidity is far greater now. And the increased probability of opportunities where managements lose their cool when confronted with me, coming my way, excites me!
I have learnt to wait and witness the great fall …… a fall from disgrace. But I can’t say the same for the Board. Not always do they like to wait to see a disaster unfolding right in front of their eyes by someone they’ve put their bets on, especially when I’m uber ready for a ‘mischief’!
So, how come the incompetent and AI operated CEO got hired by a Human Board you might ask?
Well, the CEO used the same old ploy where AI was no help, influencing the board through backchannels. It’s always good to be in the good books of certain bigwigs and s**king up to them!
Tech is clueless about such techniques!