Tone Is A Tricky Thing

September 2008

How does it feel when someone calls you “weak, poor, and inadequate?” Hopefully, those words have never been directed at you—or your work. But have you wielded them against others?

Here is an excerpt from a June 2006 Vanity Fair magazine article called “How New Orleans Drowned”:

Sunday, at exactly 10:11 a.m., as winds accelerated to 175 m.p.h., an urgent National Weather Service (NWS) advisory was sent to media outlets and government officials. There was very little sober science about it, only savage imagery, like some white paper by the way of Dante’s Inferno:

HURRICANE KATRINA… A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH… MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS… PERHAPS LONGER… AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL-CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL… ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED… POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS… WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS…. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN; LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED… ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET… DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!

The impassioned, unconventional advisory had been composed by Robert Ricks, a forecaster at the NWS’s office in Slidell, Louisiana. Ricks was the hurricane’s Paul Revere. For his wording, he relied on a NWS collection of phrases recommended for hurricane bulletins, many of which had never been used before. Ricks, who had grown up in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward, had drafted a text that created an apocalyptic picture anyone could understand…

Now what does the notice do that makes it so real—so compelling? It uses hard words and phrases:

Yep. It did the trick when previous warnings to evacuate got very few people’s attention. Please evacuate for your own good! And do it NOW!

The reason I included that segment of the article is not to encourage you to write your audit communications like that but rather to make you conscious of your word choice. Sometimes we sound much tougher than we need to and risk looking like Chicken Little. Sometimes we soften hard reality so much that no one evacuates!

SAS 112 changes the terminology for items showing up in the report from reportable condition and material weakness to significant deficiency and material weakness. Significant deficiency sounds much tougher, ruder, meaner than our old terminology “reportable condition”, doesn’t it? There are some chickens running amok at the AICPA!

Deficiencies in Internal Control
5.11  For all financial audits, auditors should report the following deficiencies in internal control:

a.  Significant deficiency: a deficiency in internal control, or combination of deficiencies, that adversely affects the entity’s ability to initiate, authorize, record, process, or report financial data reliably in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles such that there is more than a remote likelihood that a misstatement of the entity’s financial statements that is more than inconsequential will not be prevented or detected.

b.  Material weakness: a significant deficiency, or combination of significant deficiencies, that results in more than a remote likelihood that a material misstatement of the financial statements will not be prevented or detected.

Let’s say you found something that deserves attention in your report as well as a recommendation for action. You can call it a:

• Material Weakness—This is like saying “Your mama” in auditor-speak, but because no one understand our language, they only find it mildly insulting if insulting at all.
• Significant Deficiency—This is like saying “Your sister”—and most clients won’t be able to distinguish it from a material weakness.
• Finding—This makes is seem like you were searching for something—fishing in an evil way—if you will.
• Issue—This may have a negative connotation as you may have heard that so and so has “issues” or someone has taken “issue” with you.
• Opportunity for Improvement—This sounds mildly patronizing—almost like a parent-teacher conference gone bad.
• Recommendation—Some audit shops aren’t comfortable emphasizing the recommended improvements—they like to focus on the problem and let the client figure out how to fix it.

Did you think I would tell you which one was right? Nope. That is up to your judgment as to the tone you want to convey in your report. Of course, now the AICPA and the Yellow Book have made the use of material weakness and significant deficiency mandatory—but you don’t have to use them over and over and over in your report. They didn’t mandate that!

I think that using the words weak and deficient are unnecessary most of the time. They carry the risk of upsetting the client to no good effect.

Here is the how auditors often use the word “weakness” in their reports:

The Department’s internal controls over cash receipts are weak. The accounting clerk deposits cash only once a week. The rest of the week, the cash is kept in an unlocked drawer at her desk. The average monthly cash collected exceeds $600.

So, we did two things in that first sentence that are unnecessary. We used the word “weak” and we used the word “internal controls.” Do your readers understand the concept of internal controls? Many non-auditors—if quizzed—would say it is some sort of vitamin.

What could we do to avoid those words? Right, we could take the first sentence out entirely—and it wouldn’t change the meaning of the paragraph.

Bonus! We can tie the last three sentences to a working paper. We can’t tie the first sentence because it is so vague and judgmental.

How come? Because we said what was so in a matter-of-fact way. We didn’t judge it—we said what was so.

Is spicy language necessary? Most of the time, it is silly to make something minor seems important just because we found it. But sometimes…

Bottom line, look back at your recent reports with a clear and objective mind and ask if you made too big or too little a deal about the issues. Raise your consciousness about your word choice. Be very careful—words do matter.

Michael Granof, a UT Professor, wrote a fascinating op-ed for the New York Times regarding budget tricks that governments commonly use.  Please visit  http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/news/pressreleases/
granof_times_08.asp.