For the better part of a decade, corporate scandals have emerged with embarrassing regularity. Whether involving circumventing regulations, financial misstatements, or executive misbehavior, each is a reflection of something gone terribly wrong.
Unfortunately, the natural inclination when such a scandal occurs is to seek out someone to blame. I have written often about my angst at hearing the question, “Where were the internal auditors?” as part of the blame game. I addressed that very question in a 2016 blog post.
Jumping to the conclusion that internal audit could have prevented a failure is often akin to blaming a quarterback for being sacked or a goalie for giving up a score without examining the performance of the rest of the team.…