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As an auditor of quality management systems, I can tell you from firsthand experience that most auditees dislike corrective actions. Corrections are tied to findings of nonconformance; understandably, people generally want to emerge from an audit without any significant findings. But when you look a little more closely at what corrective action is, and what it can do for an organization, the perspective may change.

To understand why findings are important, it’s necessary to step through the corrective-action process to see how it plays out in a “typical” organization. I put the word “typical” in quotes, of course, because there really isn’t such a thing. Every sector and every organization is different, with its own issues and opportunities for improvement. An auditor must avoid simply implementing a kind of playbook for all situations and circumstances. With that said, there are indeed some general principles at work when we undertake this process.

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