Report highlights generational differences in workplace violence prevention training and reporting
Workplace safety
Compliance Perspectives Podcast — Michael Johnson, Chief Strategy Officer at Traliant, explains why closed-end questions are often unproductive, and how questioning the target of an investigative with the goal of securing a confession can be dangerous since it may yield a false confession and, potentially, a lawsuit.
Instead, Johnson suggests taking a different approach ─ to start by thinking through the report that will eventually be written and what factual questions it will need to answer. That can help you think through the potential sources of evidence. Next, determine who needs to be interviewed and in what order.
“Establish rapport and help get the person talking by asking about their background and responsibilities. Minimize the use of close-ended questions, asking, instead, open-ended questions which invite them to tell a story about what happened. If there are blanks or confusing parts, go back and ask more specific questions.” — Michael Johnson, Chief Strategy Officer at Traliant
Johnson adds another effective technique is to ask the target to tell the story in reverse order. It’s much more difficult for the person to do so if a person is lying.
Click here to listen to the full podcast.
