There is often a dangerous confusion between two vital concepts in business management: believing that regulatory compliance is the same as organizational maturity. Nothing could be further from the truth. We tend to think that passing an audit (compliance), as if it were the ultimate proof that we have ‘arrived’ at excellence, means we are ready to compete or face a crisis (maturity). It’s a common mistake in many organizations.
“Passing an inspection is not the same as having the ability to evolve.”
We can have an immature company (chaotic, reactive, dependent on individual heroes) that, with a lot of effort and stress, manages to “tidy up the house” just in time to pass an audit. But… the very next day, the chaos returns.
If we look at Business Management as a journey along a highway (a visual analogy illustrated by the image accompanying this post), the difference becomes crystal clear
🚨 Compliance can be audited, but maturity is challenged.
An audit is like a medical check-up or a vehicle technical inspection (VTV in Argentina, ITV in Spain): it’s binary (black or white). It reviews the past and the present to confirm that there are no serious errors and that we comply with current regulations.
🚗 The audit is the traffic checkpoint
It acts as both the traffic checkpoint and the vehicle’s dashboard. It’s the control post that verifies we meet the rules required to circulate. And, crucially, it’s also the internal dashboard that checks the ‘health of the engine’ and provides a static snapshot of the present: Are we following the rules today? Do we have the minimum resources to operate right now without crashing? It verifies COMPLIANCE and the current state.
🌟 The Maturity Assessment is the GPS.
It doesn’t look for someone to blame, it looks for evolution. It’s like a skill test for an athlete: it measures how expert, trained, sophisticated, and efficient you are. It’s not about a ‘Yes/No,’ it’s not binary, it’s about climbing levels, improving, and surpassing yourself day by day.
It’s what confirms that, beyond the speed at which we’re traveling (set by the organization), we are on the RIGHT PATH. Maturity isn’t about ‘not getting fines’; it’s about clearly knowing where we’re going and having the ability to adapt if the road suddenly changes. We don’t aim merely to pass the checkpoint we aim to enjoy the journey, improve and optimize the process, and of course, reach the destination.
Why is this difference crititcal?
Because compliance brings order, but it’s in Incident Management where the truth comes to light. Many organizations suffer from ‘analysis paralysis.’ They have perfect manuals for the auditor, but when a real incident occurs, no one knows what to do. That’s where maturity proves its value: it’s the ability to decide and act under pressure. Even for an auditor, a maturity assessment is a key tool, because it reveals gaps and improvement opportunities that simple compliance often hides.
By assessing maturity across its four dimensions (People, Processes, Technology, and Results), we draw a roadmap toward the future.
Don’t settle for merely ‘passing the checkpoint.’ Build the capability to enjoy the journey.
We need both: Auditing and Maturity Assessment. We just shouldn’t confuse a ‘medical check-up’ with having the physical condition to run a marathon.
Do you feel that sometimes too much energy is invested in the ‘audit snapshot’ and too little in the ‘maturity movie’? In your organization, is the focus more on passing the checkpoint or on adjusting the GPS?
Gerardo Fabián González
Professor at the CCI – Industrial Cybersecurity Professional School
– –