00:00:02 The IIA
The Institute of Internal Auditors presents All Things Internal Audit. In this episode, Dillon Caldwell and Eric Wilson uncover the psychology behind auditing. Trust, emotion, bias, credibility, and even burnout. If you've ever wondered why some audits succeed and others stall, this conversation reveals the human side that makes all the difference.
00:00:26 Dillon Caldwell
Today, we're exploring how psychology and behavioral science shape the work of internal auditors. Oftentimes, we think of auditing as a technical exercise, but in practice, there are many elements of auditing that are deeply human, built on things like relationships, I should say, trust, and the ability to communicate with impact. Joining me today is Eric Wilson. He is the director of audit at Gulfport Energy Corporation. Eric, how are you doing today?
00:00:54 Eric Wilson
I am doing great, Dylan. Thank you for having me on. I'm excited to talk about this.
00:00:58 Dillon Caldwell
I am too. I'm really excited that you have such an interest in psychology, specifically the psychology of auditing. And I'm sure that your wealth of experience will be able to kind of provide practical perspective when it comes to this really important intersection.
00:01:13 Eric Wilson
Well, and I'm excited because I have spent quite a bit of time researching this in order to hopefully avoid some pitfalls in running
00:01:23 Eric Wilson
and being part of an audit team. But I'm definitely coming at it from an apprentice standpoint. You clearly have far more academic experience on this one. So please feel free to tell me where along the way that I am completely wrong. And I would love to hear that, as with the audience, I'm sure.
00:01:38 Dillon Caldwell
Absolutely, absolutely. I'd actually love to hear more about what drew you to this intersection of psychology and auditing. It's a pretty interesting place to be.
00:01:47 Eric Wilson
So I started out in a couple audit departments where I guess you could say it was rough going as far as the relationship between audit and the business. And we would sit in meetings, internal meetings, and we would talk about, why doesn't the company come and ask us questions? Why don't they ask us for help? Why when we show up, does everybody kind of run the other direction? We don't understand it. We want the quote unquote seat at the table. And then you pair that with how we interacted with people through the business. And it was the, hey, we're the auditors, you're going to do what we tell you to do.
00:02:17 Eric Wilson
You're going to give us what we want when we want it. There's no questions asked. And it just hit me early on in my career that, well, of course they look at us that way. And so when I stepped into leadership roles in audit, I really wanted to avoid those pitfalls. I knew what I didn't want to do. The problem is I didn't know how to do what I wanted to do. And so that's where I started researching the psychology behind audit, organizational psychology, different theories and practices.
00:02:40 Eric Wilson
And I definitely had some missteps along the way, but I will tell you that I think it has made a tremendous difference for me from a career perspective and for our audit team and our ability to drive value within an organization.
00:02:55 Dillon Caldwell
Kind of building off of what you just said, you know, auditing is deeply collaborative. And when you're interacting with people, there are certain things that must be present in order for those interactions to go well. I know thinking about what you mentioned as far as
00:03:08 Dillon Caldwell
how people might perceive the role of the auditor before an audit activity might even take place can definitely skew how successful that activity is. I'm really interested in understanding how you as an internal auditor manage the people side of your role. How are you balancing authority with empathy and connection in these interactions?
00:03:33 Eric Wilson
one of the things that I tell everybody, whether they're on my team or if they're a consultant that we bring in temporarily or whatever, I try to put them in the mindset that auditing is an interpersonal profession that masquerades as a data-driven exercise. And so we go out and we request all this data and we try to crunch it through Excel sheets or whatever it might be that we're using. But at the end of the day, what we're really doing is we're dealing with people's emotions, we're dealing with their biases.
00:03:58 Eric Wilson
And so I try to get my team and I try to get myself in a place where we're having interactions with the business before an audit ever happens. We're going and talking to people. We're running to them in the hallway. We'll chat with them, even if we're not in the middle of an audit, because I want them to know us as people and as co-workers, not just as the auditors, because if they just know us as the auditors,
00:04:20 Eric Wilson
there's an automatic aversion and there's an automatic assumption of loss potential when you walk into an audit. And I need them to know me and I need them to know my team and I need them to understand that that's not what we're here for. We're really here to drive value and to help people. And so that's where we talk about managing the team, the team mentality in our interactions with the business. And obviously there's a lot more that goes into that, but at a high level, that's really the goal
00:04:44 Eric Wilson
of what I try to do and the placement that I try to put my department in when it comes to its visibility and image within the organization.
00:04:53 Dillon Caldwell
Absolutely, hearing you mention emotion.
00:04:56 Dillon Caldwell
my little research brain started to go off. That's an area that most of my research exists within on the sociology of emotions. And I'm really glad that you brought that up because I think when you're envisioning this interaction between the auditor and the organization that is being audited or the business unit that is being audited, the first thing that comes to mind is not necessarily whether or not there's any sort of emotion that exists between these two groups of people or this person and the people that they're auditing.
00:05:25 Dillon Caldwell
And it is, in fact, really, really important. And the research that I've seen shows specifically as it relates to emotional perception, depending upon how an individual perceives another, right? The perception of trust, the perception of credibility, the perception of knowledge and experience, it can really, really impact how successful that interaction is, how successful, you know, by extension, that auditing activity is.
00:05:55 Dillon Caldwell
And it really is a, it's a two-way st. I think we talked a little bit earlier about this concept of vulnerability and how, oftentimes in auditing, it does require people to be quite vulnerable and quite open about their processes. And
00:06:12 Dillon Caldwell
I'm really interested in kind of understanding how, going back to that idea of credibility, how can an internal auditor build credibility and work to reduce the defensiveness that might exist during those interactions?
00:06:25 Eric Wilson
So one of the things that I try to put out at the beginning of any audit engagements, and then I encourage my team to do as well, is really setting
00:06:36 Eric Wilson
setting the lanes for what does audit do and what does the business do. And where this came from was, and in fact, I mentioned this recently in an article in Internal Audit Magazine, where I was put in a position where I had to go talk to a CEO about a company strategy.
00:06:54 Eric Wilson
And I'm sitting there with the CEO and I'm going, I have no business being here, right? And the CEO is looking at me like, why are you here? And what do you know about strategy? And so, it gets to the imposter syndrome. And I'm going to tell you right now, the imposter syndrome is real and every single auditor at some point in their career is going to feel it. And so one of the things that I've developed in order to work around that is when we're on a kickoff meeting or even on the lead up to an audit is I will go into the area and I'll tell the folks, hey, listen,
00:07:23 Eric Wilson
I'm not here to re-engineer your work. I'm not here to recalculate and redo everything and tell you that in the area of expertise you have, you aren't doing something right. Now, sometimes we are on a pure compliance audit, and that is our role. But if we're doing an operational audit where it really is more process engineering work, I want the team to understand.
00:07:40 Eric Wilson
We're not the experts in the area that you're in. We're the experts in process engineering and design. And so working together, we can get to a great place. But what that does is, one, for me, it helps the other folks understand that I'm willing to be vulnerable about what I can and can't do. It puts them a little bit at ease. And then it also gives some coverage to my audit team because now when the auditors go in and they have the one-on-one meetings, the detail meetings, they don't feel like they have to be the complete experts in everything that they're
00:08:10 Eric Wilson
talking about. And because it doesn't matter what level of an audit department you're in, that imposter syndrome is absolutely an issue that you're going to run into at some point or another. So just putting that out to begin with, being vulnerable, saying, listen, this is what I'm good at, this is what I'm not good at. We're going to work together because together we're going to come out with a great product.
00:08:29 Eric Wilson
is a much better approach than saying, hey, we're gonna come in and audit this and then we're gonna tell you what you're doing wrong, right? Nobody wants that. And that really goes in my mind back to something called a prospect theory, which basically says that people fear loss more than they fear gain. If they see somebody coming in to do an audit, they're looking at this going, oh gosh, what is this gonna do to me? What is this gonna do to my department, my function? This is gonna make so much more work, et cetera, et cetera.
00:08:54 Eric Wilson
So you've got to start to walk them off that ledge and get them to where they understand that the downside is not that significant, but the upside is really substantial if we can work together. And that seems to have been positive for me and my team. It seems to work pretty well.
00:09:10 Dillon Caldwell
Eric, I'm really glad that you brought up in your last point how it's important for auditors to be vulnerable about what they do know and what they don't know.
00:09:19 Dillon Caldwell
There's a really interesting social psychological theory that's called the looking glass self. And it basically argues that we tend to frame how others see us based off of assumptions that we make about how we believe they perceive us, right? So it's this idea that you're acting based off of your assumption of how other people see you, which I think is really interesting in auditing, because again, if you're coming in and you have
00:09:48 Dillon Caldwell
this fear, right, that you're supposed to be an expert in all of these things. It's going to interact, or it's going to impact how you interact with people.
00:09:58 Eric Wilson
Absolutely.
00:09:58 Dillon Caldwell
I'd really be interested in understanding more about how framing and communication styles can influence after an audit activity, whether or not the recommendations that the auditor are making are acted on.
00:10:11 Eric Wilson
I am a big proponent that
00:10:13 Eric Wilson
There should never be a surprise in an audit. Now, that said, there's always caveats, right? If we're doing a fraud investigation or something like that, obviously we're not going to tell them, hey, listen, you're going to know everything we're looking at before we look at it. But by and large, when we do an audit, there shouldn't be any surprises. And so I tell people when we kick off audits, this is an open book test. You're going to know everything we're looking at. You're going to know why we're looking at it. And also, you know where to find me. If you ever have questions about why we're asking a question, why we're looking at particular documentation, call me.
00:10:43 Eric Wilson
stop by my office, set a meeting, and let's talk through it. Because what I've found is that most of the time, the other side ends up saying, okay, I understand where you're going. But then there's quite often where I'll go, you know, actually, I don't think we do need to look at this now that you're explaining it to me.
00:10:58 Eric Wilson
And so that two-way st becomes really important. When we do our update meetings throughout an audit, it's the same thing. We're always communicating things as we find them. We never communicate them as final. We show them, here's what we're seeing, here's what we're thinking we're going to call out. But tell us if you agree with this. If you don't agree with it, explain why. And we're happy to go back and retool some of this.
00:11:20 Eric Wilson
to make it more accurate. And really dialing on the idea that our goal is to drive value in the organization, not to call people out for things. We're focused on processes. And so if you look at something we write, you go, yeah, it's just not totally accurate. We want to know that because we want to be able to get as high of an accuracy as we can. And then the big one to me is when I write my audit reports,
00:11:44 Eric Wilson
there's two things that I always build into it. One is when I'm writing the executive summary, I make sure that I understand the story behind what we found during the audit. And so it's normally not a people issue. It's normally an issue of we didn't have the budget, we didn't have the resources, we didn't have X, Y, and Z. Our system couldn't do it. I build that into the executive summary and I'll say we found, generally speaking, issues or findings in these topics.
00:12:12 Eric Wilson
And in fact, the second part of what I was going to say is actually, I don't even call them findings. I call them opportunities for improvement in these particular topics and areas. Here's the background to why they exist. And it's never because so-and-so just didn't do their job. There's always usually something back there. So that's showing empathy to the business and saying, hey, listen, we understand that you guys are in this situation, not necessarily by your own choice, but because of situation or circumstances that you were given.
00:12:39 Eric Wilson
And we're trying to help you get out of those circumstances in this audit report by calling them out. And then when we go down into the report, the only place that I use the word finding is in the table of contents. And I use the word finding at the header of an individual finding itself. And I use that more because people are used to seeing that as a traditional wording. But in the actual wording, the executive summary, the finding, the summary of the finding, the summary or the body of the finding,
00:13:04 Eric Wilson
I don't call them findings. I call them opportunities for improvement or opportunities for enhancement. And that little tweak on wording tells people we're not here. Our goal wasn't to dig stuff up and throw it out so people could see all your, you know, all the things that have gone wrong. Our goal is to help you identify areas where we can improve as an organization. And by the way, if you read our recommendations, our recommendations have additional resources, budget, whatever it is built into it that'll give you all the tools you need to fix this problem.
00:13:34 Eric Wilson
Now, again, sometimes it is just things got screwed up. And, but 90% of the time, it truly is a process issue. And the teams that we're working with need help to fix the processes. And so I try to make the audit report a tool that they can then leverage to get that help. That language, that tone, again, gets it to where the business will oftentimes come to me and say, hey, listen, I know this isn't on your audit plan, but we're struggling with X, Y, and Z. We can't figure out why this isn't working. We're getting ready to put this new system in.
00:14:03 Eric Wilson
Can you help us? And that is, I'm just going to tell you, if you're listening to this and you struggle with the business not coming to you and you're wondering, is there something I can do that can help them? And you can make a couple tweaks and you can get it to where they come to you. I'm going to tell you right now, your life is going to be so much better than if you're out there telling people, hey, we're coming to audit you and you didn't ask for this, but too bad. And probably half of my audit plan right now is things where management came to me and asked me to help.
00:14:28 Eric Wilson
It really does make a difference. It makes my life better. It makes the business's life better. And ultimately, it's a better outcome for the organization.
00:14:36 Dillon Caldwell
I also think, you know, that nuance in how you're presenting your findings, that's huge, right? I just wrapped up a report on innovation and innovation mindset. So that was a huge part of the IIA's Vision 2035. It was this push towards the embrace of innovation.
00:14:57 Dillon Caldwell
And in the report that I just wrapped up, I interviewed 6 people from around the globe in different audit functions in different sectors and industries. And a big part of those findings involved that focus on the solution, right? So I'm really happy to hear that you bring that in because just that little bit of nuance shows innovation in the way that you're approaching a typical audit activity. It's focusing much more heavily on the solution or finding opportunities for improvement.
00:15:26 Dillon Caldwell
And I would imagine just that alone, even though it's written, can help to really reduce the potential defensiveness or not just defensiveness, but whether or not the individual on the receiving end is taking your recommendations seriously or even just how they're coming to understand the recommendations that you're making.
00:15:47 Eric Wilson
And like I said, sometimes you're doing a pure compliance audit and it is, hey, listen, this isn't about opportunities for improvement and things like that. This is just
00:15:55 Eric Wilson
a regulation says you have to do it this way. We're going to look and say, did you do it that way or not? And I'll tell people at the outset of an audit, I'm sorry, because that's how the audit report's going to be written at the end of the day. It's not my goal to write it that way. It's just the nature of the audit. And we're going to get through this together, basically, because I'm not happy about it and you're not happy about it. And so again, it's that getting people on the idea of, okay, sometimes audit team has to do things they don't want to do in a way they don't want to do it. That's fine. But normally they're here to help us. And in this one situation,
00:16:23 Eric Wilson
it's going to be a little bit more stringent maybe, but otherwise they're going to be coming here and saying, what can we do to help you improve? So even in ones where we have to approach it from the standpoint of, yes, this is going to be a black and white, right or wrong audit. I tell people, I don't like doing it this way, and you're not going to like it this way either, but we have to do it, but let's get through it. And then on the other end, we can help you with your processes.
00:16:48 Dillon Caldwell
Absolutely. I want to go
00:16:50 Dillon Caldwell
back before we go forward. I know you mentioned earlier, when interacting with individuals in these audits, you're getting to know them. Depending upon the portion of the business or the organization that you're auditing, you might be dealing with a different group of people or a different point of contact. I was wondering how difficult is it for an auditor to balance that professional identity, right? So remaining objective and independent with that really important relationship building. Oftentimes,
00:17:19 Dillon Caldwell
relationships that may look different depending on who it is that you're interacting with.
00:17:24 Eric Wilson
Yeah, that is a really fine line that auditors have to walk because it's not like we're an outside group coming in to do an audit and then we go away and you never see us again. We come in, we do an audit, and then you're going to see us the next day and the next week and a year from now.
00:17:43 Eric Wilson
And so auditors really have to walk that fine line of, hey, we're going to call out some things that maybe are uncomfortable to talk about right up front. We're going to structure in a way that we think is going to get you some benefits in the long term. But also, let's all maintain a positive relationship here because at the end of the day, we have to work with each other for a long, time, potentially.
00:18:03 Eric Wilson
So that is something that auditors have to work with quite a bit. One of the things that I try to leverage as much as possible, and it's difficult to do this if you're new in an organization, and especially if you're in an internal audit department that's maybe going through a reset or something like that. But once you're established and you've got some audits that have gone through that have gone really well, I try to leverage the halo effect as much as possible. And what I mean by that is you'll have people that, and we all have experienced this,
00:18:31 Eric Wilson
There are people that as an audit, on the audit side of things, you've got to go audit their area and you're sitting there going, this is going to be a challenge. Because I already know they're not going to want me coming in and it doesn't matter what I say to begin with to get in there. And then you go through the process and at the end, and I've had this happen a couple times,
00:18:50 Eric Wilson
At the end, they come to you and they go, actually, I'm going to tell you something, Eric. I was dreading this. I did not want you guys to come in and audit. I went and talked to the CEO to try and get this audit canceled and he wouldn't do it. And so we ended up doing it. But ultimately, it was a good process and we ended up in a good place. And I actually really appreciate what you guys did in your audit report. I like to use that and take those people. And then when I go into new areas, say, hey, listen,
00:19:14 Eric Wilson
here's what we're going to do, and here's how this is going to help, but I don't want you to take my word for it. Go talk to so-and-so down the hall. He did not want us auditing his area, and he will tell you exactly what he thinks about it. And I don't even tell him whether it's going to be a positive or negative conversation, but what that does is he'll go and talk to the person, or she will go and talk to the person, and then they'll come back, and now you have that, you know, quote-unquote halo effect around you, where somebody else has given a very positive feedback on you and your team
00:19:41 Eric Wilson
up front before a project even started. And that carries with you through the entire project, as long as you maintain yourself, your team, and the integrity of what you're doing. That helps tremendously. Having other people speak on your behalf up front is in a positive way, not in a way of, well, yeah, you have to work with them, so get over it. That never really helps much. But if people can speak positively for you, that will carry with you, not just through the audit, but far beyond.
00:20:10 Dillon Caldwell
Yeah, absolutely.
00:20:11 Dillon Caldwell
It reminds me a little bit about some of the theories that I've read up on relating to social norms.
00:20:16 Dillon Caldwell
And I think having those small interactions with individuals, encouraging them to reach out to other people, it's helping to build that trust through the interactions that they have with other people, but it's also starting to develop a new norm across the organization related to how people are perceiving the work that auditors are doing.
00:20:34 Dillon Caldwell
And that I would imagine could be, is, you know, incredibly valuable
00:20:39 Dillon Caldwell
as you begin to navigate and interact with new groups of people and maybe your audit activities are expanding and you're starting to look at other areas, those assumptions, the norms that are set within the organization, cultural norms, organizational norms, right, they can all impact how successful the audit activities that you'll be engaging in the future as well will be really.
00:21:02 Eric Wilson
Absolutely.
00:21:03 Eric Wilson
And to those, talking about the culture of an organization, I do always encourage my team
00:21:08 Eric Wilson
And I try to do this as much as well.
00:21:09 Eric Wilson
If you work for a company that has monthly lunch or if they have a happy hour, if they have whatever, go to those.
00:21:16 Eric Wilson
Let people see you outside of the office.
00:21:19 Eric Wilson
Let people see you outside of your day-to-day.
00:21:21 Eric Wilson
Help them see you as a person who's just part of the same team that they're on versus the person who's going to come in and tell them, you know, what did I screw up today?
00:21:30 Eric Wilson
And because that's not our goal, but that's how people perceive us.
00:21:33 Eric Wilson
So go out there, get people to know you as a person.
00:21:35 Eric Wilson
It will pay dividends in the long run.
00:21:38 Dillon Caldwell
Right.
00:21:38 Dillon Caldwell
It brings back that human factor to the work that you're doing.
00:21:41 Dillon Caldwell
Super, super important.
00:21:43 Dillon Caldwell
I'm wondering if there are ever any identity conflicts that might arise in audit roles.
00:21:48 Dillon Caldwell
You know, we talked earlier about a story that you were sharing when you, know, you went in to talk to the C-suite.
00:21:55 Dillon Caldwell
I'm just really curious to understand how those interactions might play out during an activity.
00:22:02 Eric Wilson
It really comes to how you frame things up front.
00:22:05 Eric Wilson
And again, if you walk in and you frame something as I'm the expert and I'm going to look at everything you've done and I'm going to make a judgment on it, that typically does not go well, especially with somebody who is a deep, deep expert in their particular area of expertise.
00:22:23 Eric Wilson
They're going to know right away that you're not an expert and they are not going to necessarily trust
00:22:29 Eric Wilson
what you have to say or really be interested in it.
00:22:32 Eric Wilson
So, again, framing up front that, hey, listen, I'm a process expert and I'm a process engineering specialist.
00:22:38 Eric Wilson
And I'm here to look at the processes.
00:22:40 Eric Wilson
I'm not here to look at the people.
00:22:41 Eric Wilson
That really helps A lot.
00:22:43 Eric Wilson
There's also a thing that I run into a lot when you're at a company that has a lot of technical expertise, or even if it's a company that has a lot of people who have been there for a very long time.
00:22:54 Eric Wilson
And that is the curse of expertise or the curse of experience.
00:22:59 Eric Wilson
And this is where, and we've all run into this situation, you go to talk to somebody and they say, okay, I'm going to dumb this down as much as I can for you.
00:23:08 Eric Wilson
And then after an hour or two hours, you walk out of there and you go, I have no idea what that person just said.
00:23:15 Eric Wilson
Because their idea of dumbing it down, of making it as simple as possible is so far beyond what the auditor has and their skill set.
00:23:24 Eric Wilson
For those individuals, those individuals can make or break a lot of times your interaction with the business because they're also the ones that the executive teams typically trust because of their expertise and their experience.
00:23:36 Eric Wilson
So I usually will go to those folks and say, hey, listen, we're going to be spending a lot of time together because you are far, far beyond where I'm at in this topic.
00:23:45 Eric Wilson
I need to really understand what you do in order to be able to properly support you and give you some leverage going forward.
00:23:54 Eric Wilson
So we're going to schedule meetings together.
00:23:56 Eric Wilson
We're going to spend some time together.
00:23:57 Eric Wilson
And I'm going to have to pull the string a little bit here.
00:24:00 Eric Wilson
And I'm going to ask you a lot of questions.
00:24:02 Eric Wilson
They may just sound like the dumbest questions ever.
00:24:04 Eric Wilson
Just take some time with me because just know I'm trying to get to a level where I really understand what you're doing.
00:24:10 Eric Wilson
Because otherwise, what happens is you walk out of those meetings and you go, oh, okay, thank you so much.
00:24:14 Eric Wilson
And you walk away and you have no idea what the person said.
00:24:17 Eric Wilson
But then you're asked to go make a judgment in their area and they see the results and they go, this person never got anything that I said.
00:24:24 Eric Wilson
And then they go talk to people who are executives and management team.
00:24:28 Eric Wilson
And again, they're the ones that the executives are going to listen to, almost without question, because they are the true experts and they have the experience.
00:24:36 Eric Wilson
So that's another thing that, that curse of expertise, really keep that in mind when you're working with people who have a lot of technical knowledge and experience and just tell them up front, we're going to have to spend some time together for me to really be able to get my arms around what you do, but it's for your benefit.
00:24:49 Eric Wilson
And that helps so much more than writing something up that then that person looks at later and goes,
00:24:54 Eric Wilson
They didn't listen to a word I said.
00:24:55 Eric Wilson
And we did.
00:24:56 Eric Wilson
We just didn't understand anything they said.
00:24:58 Dillon Caldwell
That can really help, especially thinking about the role of an auditor as a strategic advisor, right?
00:25:04 Dillon Caldwell
Understanding the work that's being done in the organization.
00:25:07 Dillon Caldwell
You mentioned something just a second ago, and it had me thinking about, you know, the power that institutional knowledge has, right?
00:25:14 Dillon Caldwell
Especially for those individuals that are maintaining it, the people that have been within the company for a very long time.
00:25:20 Dillon Caldwell
But how sometimes it can become so ingrained
00:25:24 Dillon Caldwell
within the culture of the organization that it can create, really an echo chamber where they might not be aware of opportunities for innovation, or they might be blind to certain risks because they haven't had a new, fresh set of eyes looking at it with a different perspective.
00:25:43 Dillon Caldwell
it really, really underpins the importance of remaining critical, having that critical eye, even in situations where you are dealing with someone who's an expert or someone who's
00:25:53 Dillon Caldwell
who really has a ton of institutional knowledge, getting them to even think outside of the lane that they've been in for so long can really be helpful at uncovering some really important aspects of the work that auditors are doing.
00:26:07 Eric Wilson
Definitely, and approaching those individuals when you have recommendations with not just here's a recommendation, but here's why we feel this is going to help you, and then giving them the reasoning behind it that's based on their own words and their own information,
00:26:22 Eric Wilson
really helps them understand that we did hear what you said.
00:26:25 Eric Wilson
And yes, this is something new that you haven't necessarily done before.
00:26:28 Eric Wilson
It's a new technology, whatever.
00:26:30 Eric Wilson
But we did truly understand and process what you said.
00:26:33 Eric Wilson
And we think that this can help you as a bolt-on solution, what you do every day or as a new process.
00:26:39 Eric Wilson
And then they don't just, they don't feel like you're just throwing things at them.
00:26:42 Dillon Caldwell
Absolutely.
00:26:43 Dillon Caldwell
It's clear to me that there is quite a lot of psychology behind auditing.
00:26:47 Dillon Caldwell
that's ingrained in the process of auditing and necessary for a successful audit.
00:26:52 Dillon Caldwell
Some of the research that I've done has connected fields that require quite a lot of psychological work, quite a lot of what we call emotional labor, with increases in burnout.
00:27:04 Dillon Caldwell
And I was wondering specifically, what challenges do you think that auditors face that could perhaps lead to burnout?
00:27:12 Eric Wilson
It is a real issue in audit.
00:27:14 Eric Wilson
I've seen it many, many times in my career.
00:27:18 Eric Wilson
Decision fatigue especially is real.
00:27:20 Eric Wilson
It is something that affects auditors tremendously, even though it doesn't necessarily feel like we're making a lot of decisions on a day-to-day basis.
00:27:28 Eric Wilson
We're making decisions on topics across the entire organization.
00:27:33 Eric Wilson
And so not only are we having to be
00:27:36 Eric Wilson
thrown into different areas to understand what does this area do, how do they do it.
00:27:39 Eric Wilson
Okay, now we're actually looking at a subset of this area that I've never seen before, but also now I've got to make decisions around what's working, what's not working, how do we make improvements.
00:27:48 Eric Wilson
And oh, by the way, next week I'm going to go do this again in a different area, in a different area.
00:27:51 Eric Wilson
So it may not feel like we're making a lot of decisions, but the decisions we're making are being made in areas that we don't necessarily have a lot of background and expertise in.
00:28:00 Eric Wilson
When I'm making decisions for a particular area or my team is doing that, I try to, let's all get together and let's talk about this.
00:28:07 Eric Wilson
Let's make sure that we're making the right decisions and let's spread the workload a little bit around this.
00:28:12 Eric Wilson
So that way it's not just one person, that's not just the manager or the senior who's making all the decisions and calling strikes and balls on something, but really it's the entire team is putting some effort into that.
00:28:22 Eric Wilson
More broadly with burnout, it's understanding how to schedule
00:28:27 Eric Wilson
your audit work is really important.
00:28:31 Eric Wilson
Parkinson's law says that you can expand your work to whatever the time you allot to it is.
00:28:37 Eric Wilson
So if you've got something that should take a week, but you give it six months, you're going to take six months, and then you're going to be scrambling in the last week to get it done.
00:28:45 Eric Wilson
So really understanding what is the time frame that we need to get any one task done and scheduling that accordingly is important.
00:28:51 Eric Wilson
Because what I find is that I end up
00:28:54 Eric Wilson
expanding my time out, and then all of a sudden a bunch of things pile up together, and I'm crunching to get four, five, six things done that I really could have just gotten done one at a time over the same period of time that I had blocked to get everything done.
00:29:07 Eric Wilson
So I would have had the same outcome, a lot less stress, a lot less fatigue.
00:29:11 Eric Wilson
And then, you know, I mean, I will just always throw out, take time off.
00:29:14 Eric Wilson
I think, you know, as auditors, we are moving in a lot of different directions very quickly, and sometimes it can be very high stress.
00:29:21 Eric Wilson
eat well, exercise, all the basics that go with everything, right?
00:29:25 Eric Wilson
But as far as auditing goes, I think being very aware of decision fatigue, understanding Parkinson's law and how you're chunking your time and allocating time.
00:29:35 Eric Wilson
And then don't be afraid to tell people that you're feeling burnout.
00:29:39 Eric Wilson
When I was early on in my career, I would never, ever tell our leader that, hey, listen, I think I need one day off, or I need a project that's maybe a little bit less intense, because my fear was that leader would see me as somebody who just couldn't
00:29:51 Eric Wilson
and do the job.
00:29:52 Eric Wilson
Where now that I'm on the other side of it, I'm looking at it going, I wish more people would just come tell me that they need some time off because I will gladly do that.
00:30:00 Eric Wilson
I'll rework the schedule, whatever it might be.
00:30:02 Eric Wilson
So don't be afraid to have that communication.
00:30:04 Eric Wilson
One, it shows that you're being responsible as an employee.
00:30:08 Eric Wilson
You're trying to stay at your top level, which means that sometimes you got to take a break a little bit.
00:30:12 Eric Wilson
And it also really helps the team and the company properly manage an audit function and not burn everybody out in the process.
00:30:20 Dillon Caldwell
So I think what we've talked about today has been super interesting.
00:30:24 Dillon Caldwell
I would encourage everyone listening to feel free to go back and pause along the way to look into some of the theories that Eric and myself have brought up and some of the concepts that we've discussed and read into them yourself.
00:30:36 Dillon Caldwell
I think many people will be really surprised at how relevant they are to the work that auditors are doing.
00:30:42 Dillon Caldwell
And I invite all the listeners to reflect on their own audit experiences and how human behavior and psychology can play a role.
00:30:49 Dillon Caldwell
And I just want to take a moment to thank Eric Wilson.
00:30:52 Dillon Caldwell
Thank you again for coming on the podcast today.
00:30:55 Dillon Caldwell
It's been an absolute joy to chat with you.
00:30:58 Eric Wilson
Yeah, thank you for having me.
00:30:59 Eric Wilson
I really appreciate it.
00:31:00 Eric Wilson
And I'm excited that the IIA is tackling this topic as part of the podcast.
00:31:05 Eric Wilson
And I hope we share some good information that people can leverage.
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