I have spent nearly my entire career in the audit profession and I am proud of it. In fact, I began my career at KPMG. But now, I spend the majority of my time training auditors to be more ethical. Why?
Because I believe, due to the critical nature of their positions of serving the public good, auditors should have a higher standard for ethical conduct and they should actively lead others in the importance of ethical conduct.
Apparently, some KPMG employees need my training.
You probably have heard that KPMG recently paid significant fines for “altering past audit work after receiving stolen information about inspections” and now get this… they were found to have cheated on mandated ethics and integrity CPE exams. (Read the latest in one of my favorite publications, re: The Auditors, here.) These were not isolated, rogue incidences; there was evidence of wide spread unethical conduct, even at partner levels.
You can’t make this stuff up. But it makes for good material for my training presentation, I suppose.
Years ago, Arthur Anderson showed the world that auditors could not be trusted and now KPMG is reinforcing that image. KPMG will pay its fines and issue their self-serving statements in response, but they owe the public and other hard working, ethical auditors an apology.
I teach these hard-working, ethical auditors that they should promote and facilitate the implementation of zero tolerance policies for unethical conduct in the organizations that they serve. I teach auditors to focus on pay and performance management systems to ensure they reward and reinforce ethical conduct and discourage unethical conduct. I teach auditors, first and foremost, to focus on ethics issues because I believe they are the root of all organization failures. An ethical culture and ethical leadership counts. Twice.
KPMG needs to be reminded of this. Organizations’ ability to serve all stakeholders, and I mean all, including society at large, depend on TRUST.
