HUMAN RELATIONS WHEN AUDITING
It has long been a perplexing question as to why some audits are successful, and others tend to be significantly less successful.
One of the major factors involved in conducting a successful audit, is the interface developed between key personnel on the audit team and personnel from the department/area being audited. Inadequate preparation is frequently a key factor in less successful audits.
Audit Preparation
Several things should be accomplished by the audit team leader, in preparation for the audit.
This information will give the audit team comprehensive insight into the organisation being audited.
Application of this knowledge during the audit demonstrates that the team is familiar with a department’s operations, and has some understanding of its particular problems.
The people dealing with the audit team will therefore become much more relaxed and responsive in presenting ‘their’ system to the audit team.
Let’s prevent conflict
No matter what various personalities you may encounter, the following must be accomplished in order to conduct a successful audit.
One final point. The team must be reasonable, objective and constructive. Remember that the purpose of the audit is to arrive at an objective and fair evaluation of the area, and to correct any problems that are found. Mutual confidence between the auditor and the auditee will go a long way towards accomplishing this.
Human relations when auditing
Principles of good human relations must be understood and utilised before Risk Management and auditing practices can be fully effective. Some fundamental principles, which can contribute to effective human relations are described below:
Everyone is an individual and everyone approaches a problem in an individual manner.
Each person has his/her own sensitivities based on personal capabilities and past experiences.
An awareness of basic human motivations is a particularly important and delicate phase of Risk Management.
When individual personalities interact and no friction occurs, or no conflict is forthcoming from the interaction, it is usually because of good human relations.
However when the interaction results in unresolved conflict, jealousy, or a crippling form of competition, poor human relations is usually the problem. Good human relations results in co-operation rather than conflict, and in harmony rather than antagonism; these are obviously the ways in which individuals desire to interact.
Why then, is this basic desire of human kind so very often thwarted? Why do poor human relations occur so often within industry, within commerce, or within a program such as Risk Management? To adequately answer these questions, it would be necessary to review some of the history and terminology of the study of human relations.
In the study of human relations, words have been redefined and new words have been created to simplify the concepts, which were formerly complex and vague. In a discussion of human relations, it is necessary to understand the new terms, which are used. Some of these terms are as follows:
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Term |
Definition |
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Human relations |
This term includes all relationships between two or more individuals. This broad definition encompasses such actions and behaviour as teaching, directing, informing, counselling, sympathising, commending, disciplining, and all other contacts with associates. |
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Need |
This means the state of feeling of want; a lack of some mental, physical, or emotional element required by the individual. This is a word with which we are all familiar, but which has special significance in the study of human relations. All behaviour is directed by the attempt to satisfy the needs that everyone has. |
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Motivation |
This is a term that is closely related to the concept of ‘need’. Motivation is something within a person which arouses, directs and controls actions to seek satisfaction of a need. Since all action and behaviours are attempts to satisfy needs, the direction of an individuals actions is determined by the multiple pressures of the many needs which act on him at any one time. |
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Frustration |
This term implies the prevention of the satisfaction of a need. Frustration can arise from a conflict of needs, in cases where the satisfaction of one need interferes with or prohibits the satisfaction of another. Frustration can also arise when an individual is mentally or physically incapable of obtaining the means of need satisfaction. |
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Individual difference |
This term includes any characteristics by which one individual differs from another. The differences may be in attitude, education, age, sex, religion, interests, or in other aspects. Perhaps the most important thing is to recognise that each person varies in some degree from another person. No two individuals are exactly alike. One person may be industrious, practical, cautious, ambitious, intelligent, determined and cool, and a second person may be industrious, practical, cautious, ambitious, intelligent, determined and warm. These two people sound very different, yet only one descriptive word has changed. |
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Morale |
This is a group spirit of cooperation in the common effort. The key phrase is ‘common effort’. If morale simply meant enjoyment of the work situation there would be no necessary relationship to production. For example, there are offices where groups of people have a good time together and still do not get much work done. Morale is a more useful concept when it is thought of as being related to the production effort. High morale is a result of a high level of need satisfaction from the work situation. |
Some of the basic physical needs have already been mentioned. These are the needs that must be satisfied if the body is to remain alive, and they are sometimes called the ‘primary needs’.
The need for recognition is the need to achieve importance or status within the group. Some think of this as a social need of a higher order than the need to belong.
If it is accepted that people are alike in that they have common basic needs, then it can be seen that it is possible to develop certain techniques to deal with individuals – techniques which apply to people in general.
Some proven techniques of good human relations are as follows:
These techniques are described below:
Exercise control – requires an intimate knowledge of one’s self and the acceptance of one’s self as it is. Accentuation of good or bad points is not desirable. This requires unlearning of the habit of ‘seeing things not as they are but as we are’.
Objectivity is the most important aspect of control. The rational steps to control, or the means to eliminate bias, are as follows:
The principle of ‘deliberate delay’, or looking before leaping, is a very important aspect of control. Be hesitant to give snap judgements. The person who practises deliberate delay makes fewer mistakes than the person who makes snap judgements. The implications in auditing are that we generally make our decision on whether our observations are nonconformances at the end of audit.
Listen twice as hard and talk half as much. There are two types of listening :’active’ and ‘passive’ listening.
Passive listening is when someone looks and actually is not listening. Passive listening is formed by habit. It is supposedly a politeness or courtesy. However better communication will result if people are honest and indicate when they are not listening. If someone wants to be liked by other people, he or she should learn to listen well.
Explain the problem to the other person and make sure the explanation is clear. Pre-planning and explanation go hand in hand.
Express appreciation for the contribution of an associate. This is one of the most powerful tools available to anyone. The essence of appreciation lies in the willingness to see things through the eyes of the other person. The question ‘how am I doing?’ is in the minds of all people. There are no rewards quite like:
when people have earned them. Many will respond to such positive treatment.
Stress positives to obtain needed cooperation. Positives can be very successful in getting people to do willingly what they are required to do. The three basic ego needs in all human beings should be known:
Everyone wants to say: ‘This I have done, this I will do, this I am".
Be tactful: Blunt and personal criticism undermines and destroys the vital force of incentive. Gentle and constructive guidance helps build and bolster this force. It is power with people that counts, not power over them.
Public criticism fosters rejection; private guidance/ feedback fosters growth. The purpose of feedback is:
Consider the individual as a person to enlarge their feeling of self-worth. If an individual is treated as a person, with the assumption that he or she wants to do a good job, all the ingenuity which he or she possesses may be tapped; if they are treated as anything less, they will volunteer little assistance. Everyone thinks of themselves as a person and indeed, they have the right to be treated as such.
These human relation skills offer only an increased probability of success in inspiring people to get the job done well. A certain degree of sheer faith in human nature is also necessary to increase the probability of achievement.
Even those suggestions, which include obvious improvements, are often met with intense resistance.
Research shows that any change may be resented unless intelligent planning is done in advance to help people understand their own feelings.
In order to derive the benefit from Risk Management proposals, someone must plan a program of action to apply them. When one begins to implement, one must change the established system in some way.
This change can cause the development of resistance by those whose ‘security’ the change threatens. Such resistance results in behaviour, which is intended to protect individuals from the real or imagined effects of change.
Attempts to bring about changes may create many unintentional threats to people or groups which are affected, and resistance may take many forms. For example, it may take the form of hostility, either openly or implied.
Such hostility may be directed against the change itself, against other people, against an organisation, or against the company. Some of the most common examples of resistance to change are as follows:
When problems are discussed with another person it might be helpful to do the following:
You must decide whether you can better accomplish your purpose by working on the group attitude or on individual attitudes.
It may be easier to influence the attitude of an individual since his attitude is not as strong as it might be if others are present.
The decision of a group to change an attitude might be so strong that individuals would support one another in making the change.
To have individual discussions with one or two of the natural leaders, before the group is approached, might reveal the ‘pulse’ of the group.
Favorable work attitudes always increase the cooperation of production efforts and reduce dissatisfaction among the participants. For these reasons it is important to know how attitudes develop and some of the ways in which they can be influenced.
Experiences form attitudes, and just as with habits, newly acquired attitudes are easier to change than those acquired over long periods of time.
Persuasion, which comes either from a person of importance or a group, may be able to afford the most assistance to changing an attitude.
In conducting an audit you will meet many different personalities. Some will be much more difficult to work with than others. Among these personalities are:
Acotrel Risk Management Pty Ltd
22nd September 1999
