The exciting dashboards, the flashy presentations, the infinite tools, the fancy deliverables, the AI mastery, are all good coupled with the ability to invest resources in these at will. Apparently, that is all that matters. Especially when it is said, seeing is believing! These are all out in the open for everyone to see, so that’s all one needs to believe!
Isn’t it the same when we experience someone’s personality? The clothes the person wears are all that matter! They are a tell-all about the person. What? That’s not true? Is there more to a personality than clothes? Is it more or is it that clothes do not represent any personality trait?
Likewise, the symptoms are the only true manifestation of an infection / disease. There’s no point in undergoing regular health checks if there are no symptoms to come across. A rot should show signs before we start to care about it. Until then, even if it’s too late, it shouldn’t be a concern.
Well, at least that’s what many people in the business world believe. Sophomaniacs or intellectual snobs, whatever one may call them. And yeah, that’s right, the names are fancy as well! They are always on the lookout for the same traits in others. The like-minded ones. Especially those to whom they would report, so they could be conned. After all, gullibility is not a trait reserved for people ranking lower in cadre. In fact, gullible executives are actually good to have.
Simply because such executives can be tricked into believing something’s on when there’s nothing! And also, because no one would dare pointing that out to them! They can be conned into buying gibberish as something phenomenal, or visionary never said or heard before! Where does that puts us, the not so gullible ones, is definitely not a desired place!
But it doesn’t bother us, the auditors. Because we have got work to do and more so in such places. Places where gullibility rules the roost and is treasured. It actually bothers the gullible lot to have us around. Because we aren’t drawn to fancy deliverables. What we’re drawn to is the substance behind those deliverables and the processes that created those deliverables.
Enough of beating around the bush. Though that’s exactly what such executives do, when the focus is on optics and not the substance. Let me break it down. Theres always this special breed of officials in every entity who believe in the power of presentation and not the power of work! Officials for whom looking busy matters more than being busy.
There are certain key and pretty obvious characteristics of these people:
- They are super talented at gimmickry.
- They have skills like no one else in presentations and manifestation.
- They would sell their presentation to the client and not the substance.
- They would critique every idea, person and thought that asks about doing actual work.
- They would give their own viewpoint on every matter as the subject matter expert.
- They would talk and lecture about just anything and they can go on for hours!
- Their outlook is holier than thou.
- Their actions would often contradict what they believe and preach but they don’t have the ability to identify this contradiction.
- They hardly talk sense and similarly are unable to comprehend it.
- They believe they can fool anyone into believing them.
- They believe they are visionary and whatever it is that comes out of their mouth is an unheard gem.
- They trick others into believing they are pulling off something that has never been done before.
And when these characteristics are allowed to flourish unabated, the disease gets to the head and then comes the final characteristic:
- They would come up with ideas that are not just irrational but outright stupid and they will put everyone to implement those ideas, drifting away from the purpose and objectives of the entity they are serving and tearing the idea behind the entity down while making it something that makes sense to them.
If the buck doesn’t stop at this stage, the entity would definitely stop functioning rationally!
From that point onwards, any available leverage would keep the entity afloat as long as the leverage remains intact. But such an entity is in fact tied to the leverage it can’t break free from. And in a free market it cannot and will not compete, because it cannot survive. It will then have to keep the competition at bay and use a market of its own.
And then comes the role of the supporters. They are the early adapters of sophomaniac’s ideology and similarly think of themselves as smart beings being part of something that’s pleasing to the eyes. It’s necessary for the sophomaniac’s survival to be surrounded by this lot. Simply because praise is their food and incompetence and irrationality cannot be exposed!
These supporters actually accelerate the entity’s ‘drift away from substance’ process put in place by the sophomaniac. This is because though they were brought in to manage the problems, they start creating them thus becoming a part of the problem.
But ultimately, how everything looks and feels won’t matter. Lack of substance behind outputs would come to the fore eventually and when that happens any brand equity that remains will quickly become a thing of the past. Getting fooled and conned twice is a bit difficult!
And well, in us internal auditors, you can find your worst fears come true. We follow the trail, pursue the evidence, substantiate the occurrence and existence, verify the accuracy and ownership and expose all that’s hidden in plain sight or swept under the carpet. There’s no duping us and no escaping us!
And we do that unravelling much before we begin with the audit field work. By establishing our own governance framework through the charter, determining and documenting the entity’s objectives and risk universe and aligning our audit strategies with it, we light up the entity to all its farthest ends. We’ve taken an initiative, that’s hard to ignore.
We are more than happy to work in such situations. Lighting up the darkness, especially under the glitzy and glamorous lamp is actually a pretty low hanging fruit. Lack of substance be it in the form of lack of honesty, competence, ability or willingness to do work or lack of systems and processes is good enough till no one scratches the surface of this shallow façade.
It eventually comes crashing down on its own weight. And entities who’s only operating model is conning their customers through its eye-catching façade cannot outlive the sophomaniacs and their cronies’ reign!
It’s honesty, competence and ability that’s put in the work. It’s that work that earns the entity its brand equity. It’s the systems and processes through which the work is hammered out as deliverables. These processes and systems ensure the entity outlasts the people that come and go!
Ultimately, the skill of fancying everything will run out and the only talent available will squeeze even further regressing to giving fancy names. The fancy name I would give this state is ‘lunatic!’
AI mastery is good to have, but that’s not only about mastering how to use it. But it’s also about validating its outputs. And you cannot validate an output if you don’t know how work is done!
Dashboards numbers, patterns and trends need validation. Presentation findings need citations back to the source and the processes. Deliverables are a product of a process.
AI can create all three, and that says it all. It can create without context, purpose, objectives, ethical considerations and your inputs. This creation will be without substance or will be substantially different from what was desired! Because you were the substance and you were missing!
It isn’t your creation then and you shouldn’t be credited or compensated for it. Seeking compensation for the abilities of a tool is dishonesty.
And we would reveal that truth. Truth is naked just like the emperor’s new clothes.
We like it naked!