ISACA Journal - 2015 Volume 3

In my previous column “Auditor: About Yourself (and How Others See You),” published on

1 April 2015 at www.isaca.org/journal, I touched on how being more aware of oneself helps to understand our interactions with others. Here, we explore those soft skills that do not appear in the Certified Information Systems Auditor® (CISA®) examination, but are important components of an auditor’s life and work.

Figure 1 lists the differences between those things that are part of our nature and so deeply ingrained that they are hard (even impossible) to change and those that can be learned through the combination of the 3 Ds—desire, dedication and discipline. However, these learnable skills are necessary but are not sufficient on their own.

Figure 1—Changeable Vs. Unchangeable Traits
Hard to Change Learnable

• Temperament
• Personality
• Cultural values
• Work ethic
• Risk appetite
• Communications
• Interviews
• Time management
• Negotiation
• Collaboration
• Problem solving

Source: Ed Gelbstein. Reprinted with permission.

It is important to remember the motto of the University of Salamanca in Spain, which, in 2018, will be celebrating 800 years of existence: “Quod natura non dat, Salamantica non praestat.” 1

This Latin expression can be loosely translated as, “If you did not get it from nature, Salamanca cannot give it to you,” i.e., without talent, learning is that much harder. This is why not everyone can become a concert violinist or world-record-holding athlete. While there is truth in this, it should never be used as an excuse for not making the best of the knowledge, skills and abilities we do have. And the answer to this involves learning.

Learning takes time and it helps to have
learned how to learn—a process that depends so
much on one’s nature that there is no single way
that works for everyone. A search engine query
on “learning to learn” will lead to many web
sites2 to explore and exploit. Curiosity (not listed
in figure 1) should be treated as a good thing to
have and to exploit.

Be prepared to accept that learning may require you to first unlearn what you already know. Many of the topics covered in my studies 50 years ago now belong in a museum, and the things we deal with today were totally unthought of until recently and had to be learned from scratch. A challenge, but the results are well worth it.

For those seriously interested in soft skills, consider exploring the following: • An article on soft skills published in the

ISACA Journal in volume 1, 2011, 3 that takes a
different perspective than this column
• A document titled “Soft Skills Resources” 4 on
the ISACA® web site
• A 19-minute video5 produced by the University
of Aarhus in Denmark. This is available both as
a DVD and online (You Tube).

THE PRIMARY LEARNABLE SKILLS

The exploration of soft skills can make a difference to personal development. In this column, we will focus on communications and interviewing. A subsequent column will explore time management, collaboration, organizational politics and problem solving, and a third column will focus on negotiation and conflict resolution.

Communications

Communications can be broken down into three categories: the verbal, the written and the presentation (the hybrid). All need to be learned and continuously improved. Fortunately, there are many helpful sources of advice. Some starting points are included in the endnotes, but there is a great deal more material from which you can choose.

The prerequisites for successful communications include mastery of language, scope of vocabulary and understanding the culture of those involved. These make a difference in all three areas of communication.

Ed Gelbstein, Ph.D., has worked in IS/IT in the private and public sectors in various countries for more than 50 years. He did analog and digital development in the

1960s, incorporated digital computers in the control systems for continuous process in the late 60s and early 70s, and managed projects of increasing size and complexity until the early 1990s. In the 1990s, he became an executive at the preprivatized British Railways and then the United Nations global computing and data communications provider.

Following his (semi)retirement from the UN, he joined the audit teams of the UN Board of Auditors and the French National Audit Office. He also teaches postgraduate courses on business management of information systems.