ABCs of Emotional Intelligence in Investigations
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Kate Pospisil, CFE
ACFE Communications Specialist
The first day of the 2023 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe concluded with a session on emotional intelligence by Lloydette Bai-Marrow, a founding partner of Parametric Global Consulting, a former lawyer for the U.K. government and a visiting faculty member at the International Anti-Corruption Academy in Vienna. Her goal for this session was to discuss recognizing how emotions can affect an investigation, how to employ emotional intelligence to manage investigations, and how to identify the four types of emotional intelligence and how they apply in investigations.
What is Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?
Bai-Marrow shared the perception held by a prominent psychologist that IQ is book smarts and EQ is street smarts. She began with a poll asking her audience to determine whether they have high EQ. The results were quite interesting with 45.1% of the audience saying yes [they have high EQ], 8.3% saying no [they don’t have high EQ] and 46.5% say they’re not sure. Bai-Marrow echoed the thoughts of a lot of psychologists in her belief that IQ is too narrow, and EQ is actually more important in many cases. She defined EQ primarily by what it’s not: Emotional intelligence is NOT manipulation, using emotions, a right to be a jerk, being right all the time, not being oblivious or forcing your theories. In asking the virtual audience how they define EQ, some of the responses were the ability to put yourself in others’ shoes, empathy, self-awareness, adapting, intuition, how you handle your own emotions and those of others, gut feelings and balance.
Bai-Marrow went on to share her definition of EQ: Ability to perceive, control, express and evaluate emotions. “A good investigator is an excellent communicator.” Being excellent communicators requires all of the aspects of this “very simple definition” of EQ. High EQ gives investigators the ability to manage high pressure situations and diffuse tense situations, so there are many circumstances in which it’s more important than IQ, especially in investigations. The audience was polled regarding their opinion of whether EQ was more important than IQ in investigations, and 74.3% said it was. As Bai-Marrow put it, “investigations are a people business” — you must know how to navigate people in order to achieve the best results.
Bai-Marrow delved deeper into the definitions of EQ later in her session, offering specific points and building on them with stories of personal experiences and audience feedback. She also identified four types of EQ: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
Self-Awareness
This skill is essential for managing biases, which are an ingrained and unconscious part of being human. There is so much stimuli to process on a regular basis that the brain creates cheat codes — implicit biases — to navigate them. Our work as fraud investigators is not done in isolation, and there are people involved at every level,so battling biases is vital to an investigation. Bai-Marrow suggested focusing on gathering facts rather than building a case, which may help overcome certain types of bias. Other things that are necessary are performing regular and accurate self-assessments and pushing past your ego. You can’t address your biases unless you’re willing to seek and address them.
Self-Management
Bai-Marrow pointed out the six components of self-management: self-control, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability, achievement drive and initiative. You must ask yourself what your main goal is, are you interested in achieving the best investigation result, or are you out to be right? Can you be trusted to manage yourself to achieve the right end?
Social Awareness
Bai-Marrow discussed the five skills of empathy, identified by D. Brené Brown: perspective taking, nonjudgement taking, understanding your own feelings, communicating that understanding and mindfulness. Empathy is a skill that must be honed, and it’s a requirement in investigations where you must take into account the varied social and cultural norms of those involved in the investigation, be that culture, religion, gender identity and more.
Relationship Management
In investigations, communication and developing rapport are vital on both sides of the conversation. You must trust and respect your co-investigators, and you must work to build a connection with your interviewee in order to gather all relevant information. In developing and managing relationships with others, you must also navigate conflict and determine the best ways to find resolutions. You are also responsible for helping develop others into better people as they help you through your experiences together.
Bai-Marrow concluded the session with some information on strengthening your own EQ and where to “check yourself” when you may be falling down on the self-development path. She offered three ways to strengthen your EQ:
Become more self-aware.
More empathy, please.
Be more open-minded.
