In the latest McKinsey Quarterly is an interesting discussion entitled Managing the Strategy Journey. I was struck by the early reference to “pervasive, ongoing uncertainty” and the statement that “companies needed to get their senior-leadership teams working together in a fundamentally different way.” Their basic point is that rather than strategy being set in annual or semi-annual meetings, there should be a more continuous process, a journey, in which strategies and related actions are monitored and adjusted at least weekly. 

The Harvard Business Review has made available, for free, an article from a recent issue: Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions (PDF). 

In 2001, I joined a new company called Solectron as the head of internal audit. Solectron had a history of entrepreunership and innovation (twice winning the Malcolm Baldridge award, in 1991 and 1997. I felt it was time to apply that innovative spirit to internal audit as I redesigned and rebuilt the internal audit function.

While I am keeping the survey open (please participate if you have not already and I will update my report if there are sufficient additional responses), I want to share the results and discuss what they mean.

Every so often, somebody sends me a book and asks me to review it and share on my blog. A friend, former colleague, and recovering internal auditor, Gary Dickhart, has a new book out called The Power of Integrity (available several places, in paperback and e-reader form, including at Amazon).

Both internal auditors and board members need to know what their CFOs are thinking and worrying about. Deloitte has a valuable publication, CFO Signals, which will help. 

I am going to talk about Bruce Carpenter, the Vice President of Internal Audit at Sybase. Like others in the Silicon Valley, Bruce was a respected internal audit leader at his company when he was asked to take on not only risk management but compliance as well. Now, we can argue whether those represented conflicts or not, but being the hero that Bruce is he accepted the challenge. 

The latest Audit Committee Brief from Deloitte covers Internal Investigations: 10 Ways to Prepared in Advance. Now apart from the obvious correction (there’s only one way to prepare and that’s in advance), I have some serious issues with the guidance.