Minimize Auditing
– Let them control their own work
Another way of looking at Semco is to say that we treat our employees like responsible adults. We never assume that they will take advantage of us or our rules (or our lack of rules)
In a Nutshell
Internal auditing has grown to become a corporate function in itself but is it always required for the company to function smoothly? Companies assume this is necessary but rarely stop to take a look at ongoing historical auditing, some of which could be very silly in practice, and question their relevance. While there will always be legally required reporting and auditing, companies have many other practices that relate to auditing, such as centralized or internal auditing, that does not add value to the business or the people.
When you start to distribute the power to build autonomous teams, you don’t need to keep auditing every piece of financial information, stock or inventory. Distributing the power also means distributing trust among the different teams. The mechanism of internal auditors is replaced by a peer pressure mechanism where the auditing will be automatically done by employees as there will be a need for accountability.