This blog addresses three crucial aspects of internal audit that many people may find distinct, even abstract. However, we will see how they are linked, not just historically, but in our everyday practice.

The Greek word logos – from which we derive the word “logic” – means “word, discourse, or reason”. Words and their meanings, and the way in which we reason using them, are intertwined. We cannot communicate without reasoning, and rigorous reasoning may bring us to unwelcome conclusions. This then brings us to ethics – from ethos, meaning character, beliefs, and ideals.

What follows is a brief exploration of how logic, language, and ethics combine to produce good or bad communication. By good communication, and good language, I mean strong, clear, and direct. Bad communication, using bad language, on the other hand, is weak, vague, evasive, and pretentious. The problem is that bad language prevails in most organisations, and people who wish to overcome it must work very hard to do so.

George Orwell, in “Politics and the English Language” (1946), linked bad language – whether in politics, academia, or business – to incompetence and insincerity. His focus was not literary prose, but about “language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.”

Many reading this may not recognize their own practice in this – after all, you may think, I communicate perfectly well within my own organization. We know what we mean, and we use language we all understand. But do you? Orwell wrote of “vagueness,” and “hackneyed” or clichéd turns of speech. He also listed overuse of the passive (as opposed to the active) voice among his “swindles and perversions.”

Most organizations indulge in this kind of language. It’s easy to find entire documents full of passive sentences, and everyone knows buzzwords such as “stakeholder,” “synergize,” “deep dive.” We assume these words are clear, until we realize they can have different interpretations. If there is a gap between what we mean and the words we use to express it, then the logos, which should be both logic and word, splits.

This often happens for three reasons. First, many people don’t actually know what they mean to say. Second, they may know, but not want to say it directly. Third, many people cite lack of time to focus and articulate – they just need to get the words on the page and send them. Yet if it’s important enough to communicate something urgently, what and how we communicate are worth spending time and effort on.

But, as Orwell said, “you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready−made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you – even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent – and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.”

But why would we want to conceal our meaning from ourselves? Probably for the reasons mentioned above: either we don’t know what we want to say, or we don’t want to say it aloud. Let’s look at some examples from politics and business.

In UK politics, Winston S. Churchill and Boris Johnson’s names are famous. Yet their manners of communicating, especially during a crisis, differed radically. Let’s compare two different statements, both made in the UK House of Commons, 81 years apart.

On 4 June 1940, during World War II, Churchill declared, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

On 8 December 2021, responding to (later proven) accusations of partying during Covid-19 lockdowns, Boris Johnson claimed, “I repeat that I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken.”

Which sentence is more active, clear, and trustworthy? Which one smacks of bluster and evasion?

The same, of course, exists outside politics. In his report on how carmaker GM attempted to hide manufacturing defects, Anton R. Valukas stated that employees were told which words to use and to avoid. Instead of “Problem,” they could use “Issue, Condition, Matter.” Similarly, instead of reporting a defect, staff members were told to say, “Does not perform to design.”

In contrast, Warren Buffett, in his 2012 letter to shareholders, rather than rejoicing at a $24.1bn gain, stated bluntly, “A number of good things happened at Berkshire last year, but let’s first get the bad news out of the way.”

Again, the difference between these two approaches is stark – and it is all down to language. If we follow Orwell’s advice, we should put “verbal refuse” such as Johnson’s and GM’s “into the dustbin where it belongs.” Writing of “garbage language” and its effect on both corporate functions and the people who work in them, Molly Young stated that it “permeates the ways we think of our jobs and shapes our identities as workers. It is obvious that the point is concealment; it is less obvious what so many of us are trying to hide.”

If we resist the glib appeal of bad writing, hiding or concealing should be impossible. And we should have no qualms about communicating clearly.

So, as internal auditors, how does this affect us? Obviously, we should use critical thinking throughout our engagements, and then discipline ourselves to use plain language – and courage – when communicating our results.

It’s not easy – but it is essential. All the more so since the introduction of the Global Internal Audit Standards, including Standard 1.1: Honesty and Professional Courage. This requires us to link both language and logic to the third element – ethics.

Richard Chambers and I have stated, “Internal auditors must be courageous when serving their organizations. Clarity and courage should be at the heart of our work.” So how will you bring together logos and ethos, logic, language, and ethics, to benefit your organization?