A farmer was experiencing a serious problem with cranes eating his seed, so he decided to cast a net upon his fields in an attempt to capture the cranes. Along with the cranes, he snared a stork. The stork pleaded for his life saying, "Honorable farmer, I am not like these others who came to steal your seed. I am a stork." The farmer replied, "You may very well be a stork, but from the evidence here, I can only assume that you, too, have come to eat my seeds." And with that he slew the stork along with the cranes.

I found this nugget as I was digging into my archives of Aesop fables. I’m continually delighted and amazed at the enduring relevance of Aesop’s moral tales, especially when they relate to things like auditing and quality principles in general.

When conducting audits, many of you have probably come across those hapless souls who find themselves in the uncomfortable position of being accountable for a finding of nonconformity in their area. They plead their case, insisting that this is an isolated incident of insignificant consequence and that it’s never happened before. They attempt to explain; they try to cajole. After all, look at all these other records or processes that are perfectly controlled. I’ve even had people say: “We didn’t think you’d be looking at these records” as though the only ones that need to be well controlled are the ones an auditor is expected to review.

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