A Look Back at the First Half of My Journey

The new year has arrived, and it will be a special one for me. August will mark the 50^th anniversary of my first internal audit assignment. I know there are others in the profession who have passed that milestone, so I am not seeking to use it to gain attention or applause. Instead, I plan to use the occasion to remember the important lessons I learned on this remarkable journey.

As we travel down life’s path, each of us experiences things in both our personal and professional lives that prepare us for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In that regard, my journey is not unique.

What sets mine apart today is that I have spent five decades serving the same profession—internal auditing. Over the course of my career, I have learned many important lessons, some early in my career and some much later. The paradox of learning important lessons later in life is that you have less time to apply them, which has been a motivating factor for me to share my experiences in books and blogs over the past 15 years. As I wrote in the introduction to my first book: “If I can help just one internal auditor to be better prepared for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in his or her career, then the effort will have been worth it.”

Before diving headlong into the lessons learned, it might help to put some of my experiences and milestones into perspective by quickly reviewing my journey. I’ll reminisce about the first half of my career in this blog and will complete the journey in a soon-to-be published Part 2.

As a college freshman, I knew only that I wanted a degree in business. But when I took my first accounting course, during my sophomore year, I was surprised by how well I did—and how much I enjoyed it. I took a second course, also did well, and decided to major in accounting. I became so intensely involved with accounting that I finished my four-year degree in just two years and nine months – and was barely 21 years old.

I wanted to immediately pursue a master’s in business administration at the same university. Being super-practical (even at 21 years old), I wanted a job close to the university so I could work by day and take MBA classes at night. So, when an opportunity came up in the internal audit department of a major bank across the street from the university, I took it. I had no deep understanding of what internal auditing was, but, my first year as an internal auditor was a great learning experience, and I made some good friends.

I had also applied after college for a government job in what is now the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), but when I finished college in 1975, the nation was in the throes of a recession and no opportunities at the GAO were available. A year later, however, a letter arrived in the mail—not inviting me for an interview but offering me a job at the GAO! It was a great opportunity. I was a little nervous about moving so far from home and leaving in the middle of my MBA program. Still, I packed my belongings and joined the GAO’s international division in Washington, DC.

It was an incredible experience for many reasons. It taught me a lot about the importance of family and friends, even when you are separated from them by great distances. The work was interesting, and I learned a lot. My stay at the GAO turned out to be short, however. I received an offer to interview for a job in the internal audit department of a large military base back in my hometown.

I had come to the fork in the road that everyone encounters at some point in their career. I could stay in Washington and work for the prestigious GAO, or I could return to my hometown to a less prestigious internal audit role. For a lot of reasons (both professional and personal), I chose to go to work for the Army as a civilian internal auditor.

I was an auditor for one of the largest commands (organizations) in the entire U.S. Department of Defense. I moved quickly through a three-year internship. I felt pretty good about the training and began to believe that my destiny lay in internal auditing. I soon finished my MBA, and even joined the faculty of a local university teaching accounting and economics courses at night.

Over the next 8 years, I advanced up the ranks in my internal audit department and became an audit team leader. But the longer I stayed, the more restless I became, and it would likely be a decade (if ever) before I could become the CAE. Siezing on a unique opportunity, I left internal audit and took a higher paying role as an operations research/cost analyst in the CFO’s organization of my command. I missed internal audit from the day I left. But little did I know I had taken a step that would change my life forever.

In my new role, I had the chance to regularly brief the CFO and other executives on critical projects. He soon knew who I was, and the fact that I had been in internal audit for 8 years. When my old CAE boss decided to retire, I was stunned to learn that the CFO was recommending me to the CEO as his replacement. I was soon tapped for the CEO role and returned to an organization where many of the auditors were there when I arrived. It was awkward, but exhilarating. At only 33 years old, I was suddenly in charge of an internal audit function with 70 offices and more than 300 internal auditors.

My 5 years as the CAE were remarkable. When I took over, we were widely regarded as the weakest internal audit function in the Army, but thanks to a lot of help, we were soon recognized as the gold standard.  Senior Army leaders in Washington DC noticed and asked me if I would move my family there to take over the internal audit function in the Pentagon. Another promotion at the Army command where I had headed internal audit for 5 years was unlikely, and I had seventeen years left before I could retire from the Army with full benefits. “Maybe I ought to do it,” I thought. I suddenly found myself in the Pentagon heading an internal audit organization with 1,400 internal auditors in 300 offices around the world. The next few years were incredibly challenging as we fended off downsizing pressures and those who wanted to seize control of our resources. But we persevered and elevated the quality and effectiveness of internal audit around the world.

My tenure at the Pentagon roughly marks the end of the first half of my career in internal audit. The early years in our careers are always formative, and mine were no different. I benefited immensely from the experiences I endured and the lessons I took away from those experiences. I believe there were at least 5 lessons from those early years that bear repeating:

1. Don’t be too strategic when starting your career. Conventional wisdom said I should join an accounting firm out of college, but I had other ideas. I wanted an MBA, and the demands on young professionals from the accounting firms would have made that very difficult in the short term.
2. Be willing to take chances. I look back now in awe at my bold and audacious younger self. I told my first CAE that I aspired to have his job in 15 years. It was a very presumptuous statement from a 21-year-old in a culture where career progression was measured in decades. It had taken him 30 years to get where he was. He chuckled at my ambitiousness, but I ended up with his job in 11 years!
3. Never forget: you make your own breaks by the quality of your work. In a pattern that would be repeated throughout my career, the two biggest breaks during the Army years came because someone at a much higher level was watching me. The CFO who recommended me to be the CAE and the Assistant Secretary of the Army who asked me to come to the Pentagon reached out to me because they saw the potential and work ethic I would bring to the roles.
4. Be careful what you wish for. I made a couple of short-lived detours in my career in hopes of a quick promotion. It is true that I made more money in the new role, but I didn’t enjoy the work. In each case, I orchestrated a quick U-turn to get back to the work I loved.
5. Focus on the journey – not the destination. While my career has been marked with notable accomplishments, I tried not to set lofty career goals beyond enjoying my work and living up to my potential. Looking back, I have no regrets about the career choices I made. Even the less enjoyable career moves played a part in the successful chapters that lay ahead.

I welcome your feedback and look forward to sharing the rest of my journey in the next blog post.