One of the most frustrating events in my career was one of the first times an internal audit client firmly and repeatedly said “no” to one of my recommendations. It was an important point and I tried to explain my reasoning. Management agreed with the finding, but believed corrective action would be too time consuming and resource intensive. My supervisor also supported me, and we believed the risks of not implementing corrective action would be very high for the enterprise. But neither of us could persuade management to implement the recommendation or even find an acceptable alternative course of action.
When management says no and refuses to budge, you realize that it makes no difference how valid your recommendations are, or how hard you worked on the audit.…