System Audit - Discussion Continues ....
A reply from "Wei Hua Jin"
6th Oct. 97
Hi, Andrew!
I am still pondering on your writings on auditing. They made very interesting reading. There is something which I would like to mention now. I would like to include some of our discussions in my PhD thesis if you agree, since I found your insights very valuable and enlightening.
In general, it seems that in your view that auditing should provide a non-judgmental objective view of the current reality of the organisation. The audit findings should be subject to discussion among the organisational management themselves.
In your Object 78, you seem to point out there is benefit to import an outside or independent or third-party view of the organisation in the form of auditing in order to overcome the inherent and unavoidable organisational blind-spot. In particular, you seem to criticise the over-indulgence of the self by some organisations, i.e., those organisations who fail to admit the inherent and unavoidable blind-spot. If the seven blind people do not discuss with each other, how could they ever find out the whole shape of the elephant?
In your Object 75, you criticise the kind of fire-fighting behaviour. In reality, some management like fire-fighting, since that could make them look very busy and occupied as if they are doing something or getting somewhere. You seem to criticise a level of over-reliance upon the third-party to think or see instead of the organisations themselves.
In your Object 76, you seem to criticise the kind of prevailing non-systemic thinking in some organisations, e.g., blame culture and so on.
In your Object 77, you seem to reiterate your points in 75 and emphasise the fact that God only helps those who help themselves.
In your Object 61, you seem to lay a requirement on the auditors to be non-judgmental in their independent roles.
You said that you were trying to see the whole puma through the spot of auditing, more actually the reaction on auditing by organisations. This is very interesting. I have learnt quite a bit about some of the current issues in organisational management. There seems to be a lack of the notion of autonomy, which would answer some of your points. I would classify it as the need for the notion of autonomy and the awareness of the side-effect of being autonomous.
You can't have the fish and bear claw at the same time, as the ancient Chinese said. That means whatever you get, you will get the side-effects too. The notion of autonomy seems to be important, which has been studied by many management cyberneticians such as Stafford Beer and so on. According to Beer, there are five subsystems in an organisation: policy, intelligence, co-ordination, control, and implementation. And he suggested that auditing comes in the co-ordination together with other functions such as accounting and so on. To take aboard his words, there seems to be a role for auditing even in autonomous systems. Now the question is whether you are confronting autonomous systems or not. And does it matter, I mean whatever the case, can auditing still play a role? In other words, can auditing facilitate the management of autonomous organisations or help bringing forth autonomous organisations? If so, what kind of auditing would be able to do that?
Now that I have learnt quite a bit from your observation, I think I have a clearer picture about what I want to do with my PhD. Thank you very much, and I really appreciate your kind help.
Best regards and take care!
Wei,
Refer OBJECT Solutions on System Audit
End.
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By Andrew Wong, 7th Oct. 1997
COPYRIGHT @ 1997
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