As more and more little grey hairs develop on my head and as less and less hair are left, I start to see some similarities in my career as an internal auditor and my approach to investments.
In most careers, one starts at the bottom rung of the corporate ladder and slowly works himself or herself up through gaining experience, doing the actual work and learning the ropes of the trade, business or profession. I started out as an audit officer who was the lowest rank for degree holder. I prepared working papers, drafted audit programs for my audit supervisor to review and carried out the detailed audit procedures myself. There was no-one to delegate to and that was how I learnt my internal controls, auditing and interviewing skills and basic draft management letter observation writing.
After two years of doing the “grunt” or ground audit work, I was assigned as a team leader (audit supervisor or audit senior) in a small team and supervised two staff but also performed some of the audit procedures. Thus I did slightly fewer audit procedures as some time was allocated to manage the audit deliverables, draft audit reports and liaise with the auditee on the conduct and progress of the audit. I also reported upwards to audit manager on the status and progress of the audit.
My career brought me to different work settings but what struck me from my various roles was that either I did the work myself or managed the work. As my experience grew, I realised that doing the actual work while important was less valuable than being able to manage the work and its outcomes and to “run” the operations. Rewards and credit flowed more to managers (who plan and direct) than actual staff who did the work.
In my current role, my team does most of the actual audit procedures and the first draft of the audit program. My value-add is to review the audit program to ensure that it meets the audit objectives and to get the audit plan cleared in the first place by senior management and the Audit Committee. Thus, I am managing and planning the work more than doing it myself. I still join my staff for client entrance/exit interviews and perform mostly supervisory, review and quality assurance on the work of my team. I also train my staff in building capability for them to deliver on their audits. For example, I personally coach my team a lot in using computer-assisted-audit tools as I had prior experience running those tools in the earlier part of my career.
How does this parallel my own journey towards financial freedom and my investing style?
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