Internal Auditing and Human Personality: Compatibility Mapping

Internal Audit and Human Personality: Compatibility Mapping

The Institute of Internal Auditors Qatar's latest webinar on "Internal Audit and Human Personality: Visionary Insights Into Compatibility Mapping, presented by Karem Obeid and Sultaneh Naeem, was a big success with a full-capacity audience throughout the session.

Karem Obeid is an internal audit thought leader and entrepreneur who drives innovation and strategic transformations with 28 years of internal audit executive leadership roles in several leading companies in the Middle East region. In addition, he has held several IIA board and volunteer leadership positions. Karem is the first from the MENA region to be elected as a member of the IIA Global board.

Sultaneh Naeem is the founder and CEO of TWIG Professional & Management Consultancy. She is a thought leader as well as a seasoned expert in the field of quantum leadership, mind training, executive and personal coaching, as well as family business. As a highly sought-after life strategist, transformational expert, and mind trainer, she has worked extensively with C-level roles in the Middle East and globally.

Karem started the presentation with an anecdotal reference to his personality traits and impact on his internal audit work areas. Sultaneh and Karem started the uncharted journey into the frontier of focusing on People's Personality type and linking it to the competencies needed. Such quantum approaches have explored the possibilities of finding innovative links and alignments between Internal Audit's well-established competencies, job levels, job activities, peoples' inborn and natural preferred mental processes, and psychological type.

Sultaneh introduced the personality type: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). She explained the four mental processes: Introverts Vs. Extroverts, Sensing Vs. Intuiting, Thinkers Vs. Feelers and Judgers Vs. Perceivers. She connected how these preferences are a psychological source of energy, information gathering, decision-making, and lifestyle orientation, respectively. These variants emerge in the form of the 16 personality types.

"Within the human personality is a character, and the temperament determines the character. If you look at the lemon and the seed. The seed is the temperament and how the seed grows into a certain shape, smell, and color; all this is the character. So the character is the innate expression of the temperament," Sultaneh stated. She emphasized that it is imperative to express and to be aligned with our temperament.

Karem took up the second part of the presentation by relating competencies, job level, and job activities to the personality models by sharing his personal experience. "Is there another way to more effectively set teams instead of a hierarchy based on the audit scope? Why does residual energy level vary across individuals after they perform the same task? Do internal Auditors know why some excel in certain competencies?" Karem questioned. The answers to these questions are possible with compatibility mapping, where each temperament type can be mapped against knowledge areas, activities, or services. In this process, performance and productivity can be enhanced.

The parting thought was 'The power of: know thyself, know thy team, know thy boss, know thy client.'

"The session introduced a new dimension and the value it will add in transforming and reshaping the Internal Audit departments. This is achievable through allocating resources based on competencies, job activity, job level, personality type, and temperament classification. The presenters brought out novel perspectives with amazing takeaways as food for thought," said Sundaresan Rajeswar, who coordinated the event.

Girish Jain, the Seminar chair, welcomed the gathering, Rajeswar handled the Q&A session, and Aisha Rafique was the liaison with the speaker. The event had 100 members in attendance.  

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