> How can our team influence changing to a more long - term view focused
> on improvement and root cause guided action?

In my personal experience, audit goals have nothing to do with root causes. 

They just look for violations of policy and standards, then report to management. "Passing the audit" any way possible is the sole goal. 

Consider that you may be in the wrong department if you want to make real change happen. For change to happen it must be a commitment from the top. And most likely that commitment won't target the Audit team as the change agent.