Photo by Doug Finstad
by Michael Shaw
Many are familiar with the Eastern European narrative of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Peter was easily bored while shepherding. So he'd find ways to amuse himself, running up rocks, climbing trees, chasing sheep, but nothing kept him entertained for very long. Then Peter hit upon a brilliant idea. He climbed to the top of the tallest tree, and started shouting towards the village: "Wolf! Wolf! Wooolf! Woohoolf!"
One of the villagers heard him, and got all the other men together, and armed with axes, hoes, and forks, they ran out of the village to chase away the wolf and save their herd. When they got there, they merely found Peter perched high up in his tree, laughing, and the sheep grazing peacefully. They were very annoyed with him.
Peter repeats these antics several more times. With each false announcement of "wolf," the villagers increasingly numbed themselves to Peter's game. This tale concludes with a real wolf threatening the herd, only now, Peter's cries are ignored, and the sheep slaughtered.
Many of us were told stories like these as children. Parents, friends, and teachers all hoped to instill life lessons into our young minds. However, as childhood transforms into adulthood the narrative of the Boy Who Cried Wolf appears to be upended. Instead of a moral impetus to tell the truth, in today's world, it seems that much of what we do rather is "Crying Truth."
Previously, when someone mentioned truth or brought forth truth from deceit the sky would open, and angelic trumpets would sound. These triumphant notes connected the path from discovered truth to corrective or restorative actions. Or so the imagery in my head tells me. Today, first and foremost, the truth is increasingly difficult to identify. Next, the announced truth is more often in the eye of the beholder rather than the result of collective findings. Perspectives certainly matter and one person's reality can be another person's falsehood. Moreover, the "truth" is being bellowed from every mountaintop. And, much like the villagers in the opening fable who charged the hill with their tools to defend the herd, many today are numb to all the "truth" that is "reported" and thus, less eager to charge the hill, galvanized to defend the herd.
To provide some context to "Crying Truth," let us look at the use of audits in the Department of the Army (DoA) as a background. This topic much larger than these introductory examples but they do provide visible and tangible examples for initiating a more extensive and broader debate across the entire community, not just the profession of arms.
In an attempt to dissuade those in conflict to such a topic, specifically the usage of audits in this article, the argument pertaining to “Crying Truth” is mealy a vessel, one of many processes that has fallen victim to such vocalization. This dialogue is not supposing the elimination of external evaluations, they have a very real place as a method of checks and balances. Instead let us examine the purpose, results and most important, follow on actions with identified findings.
The DoA is a subordinate organization to the Department of Defense and even more subordinate to our nationally elected political representatives. The DoA, in its subordinate capacity, has a responsibility both professionally and legally to explain and document the decisions it has made and investments it makes concerning the national treasure allocated to its coffers each year (people and dollars). Like many organizations, there are times when accountability and record keeping is simple and others where the proper documentation and records are difficult to come by. In recent years, to ensure such accountability and process are followed leadership both inside and external to the DoA have begun to lean heavily upon the audit process to discover “the truth.” Audits primarily originate from organizations such as the Army Audit Agency, the DoD Inspector General office, and the US Government Accountability Office.
While the audit process itself is not part of this discussion, the point or results of such audits indeed are. With each investigation organizational capital is spent; time, energy, dollars and organizational credibility. The all too common phrase, real or interpreted, "we are here to help" echo's through the cubicles and minds of staff officers and civilian employees undergoing the audit process. For what purpose, what result, what improvement or refinements are these efforts engaged? In today's environment, the secondary and tertiary effects of an audits findings should become the primary focus. Otherwise such investigations become a “gotcha” game. The teams findings should be mildly important, but what an organization is does with those findings should ring loud and clear. Instead, most often the opposite is true. Audit agencies develop findings, publish those findings and follow up at some predesignated time to see what actions if any the organizations have taken. The audit report becomes the object of importance rather than the effect or change that could result from the findings.
Moreover, with each audit and individual finding comes a tasking for the DoA to determine what action they will take in regards to the findings. These tastings, have over time become irrelevant and bureaucratic. What changes one organization is going to make pales in comparison to the outcome or "truth" that the audit team uncovered. A discovery of project overspending takes center stage in political trench warfare while the actions to correct said mistakes become lost to paperwork, tasking trackers and multi-colored status boards that staff officers want to go away.
When every discussion, every investigation, every audit is cause for the use of a platform and megaphone to announce "look what we have discovered," the announcements begin to lose their power. Truth is an imperative but "Crying Truth" in an attempt to rally support in one direction or another, to use discovered information without context or to ignore the necessary secondary actions to correct undesired or improper findings only continues to numb the community. When a real action is required, or essential course corrections identified, the stick will become necessary to move the organization. Moreover, when a truth is discovered to truly contain illegal, improper, or immoral action the community writ large is equally as numb to the previous report that found improper historical documentation retention.
Individual, social and organizational capital are all wells that contain only a finite volume. Just as in young Peter's experience, when his game of falsely calling wolf wore thin within his community, Peter was unable to galvanize the village's help needed when a dangerous threat appeared on the hillside. The same danger exists today in the act of "Crying Truth." When findings and documentation lead, the military profession becomes numb to said findings and reports. When the expectation by those undergoing an audit is that fault will be found before innocence, understanding, and perspective then no amount of “truth” will move an organization from its current course. Instead trenches deepen and greater obstacles constructed. Today, it appears that whoever finds truth and can cry the loudest wins. What victory results from such action is still up for debate. Instead, what should become our focus point are the organizational responses and completed fixes to the uncovered truths. Have these findings made our organization better? Have our processes changed? Or, do we have a laundry list of truths that remain open, unanswered, or worse, answered with such ambivalence that it merely changes the color of a status report from red to green?
This same argument could be overlaid on politics discourse, media coverage, social media dialogues, and activism regardless of the cause with similar findings. While the truth is important we must dig deeper to discover what lays beyond the truth, what must happen next.
Are you "Crying Truth?"
This blog was inspired and title coined by a friend and coworker Dan. Thank you for your continued ideas and insights.