Control function
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People Anatomy™
A spotter’s guide to the men and women of finance.
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The sainted people who, because they are paid purely to worry themselves about whether the sky will fall in on our heads, are short an asymmetric option, in that if they let something through and it makes bags of money, they’ll see and get credit for none of it, but if it blows up in the Salesperson’s face, they’ll get fired for it while the Salesperson will feign (entirely genuine) ignorance.
But as the complicatedness of our organisations has grown we have developed more and more internal “engines” that engage not with the outside world, but with each other, generating their own heat, noise and movement — frictions and vibrations which wear out parts and fatigue the machinery — and which are lost as entropic energy.
Of course, of course: one must have legal, compliance and internal audit, but when those departments have their own operational infrastructure and are themselves monitored and audited, the drift from optimal efficiency is plain. Internal audit must periodically audit itself. But who audits that function? Turtles ahoy: we approach an infinite regression.
Among others, the following:
And of course, the control function’s control function, the good offices of internal audit.