This might seem like an simple question, but the correct answer is not to slow them down, in fact it is to allow them to go faster!

What many people don’t understand is that only if they know they have control of their car (i.e. their brakes work), would people dream of allowing their car to accelerate. So it is with organisations, only when an organisation knows that it can control its speed and direction will it take the risks necessary to reach its goal in as quick a time as possible by going putting it’s foot on the accelerator.

This needs to be the attitude taken to internal controls within an organisation. They are not an activity that stops the company from going where it wants to go, they give management control, so that they can slow down when they need to, and thus allow them accelerate when it is safe to.

Equally, when a car tries to accelerate, you do not throw the brakes out in order to make the car go faster, instead you know how to release the breaks.

However, those working in internal controls in an organisation face a real challenge, in order to act as an effective control on an organisation, they cannot be just a permanent break, or the car will never accelerate and reach its destination. Instead they must function how we are taught to drive a car, breaking early and smoothly..

This involves all the key skills of driving: effective training, learning from experience, reading the road ahead and not just where you are, and not being distracted. Those designing, implementing and operating controls in an organisation, would do well to consider during their working day, would I drive like this on the way home?