Emotional Intelligence: The ‘Je Ne Sais Quoi’ That Sets You Apart

According to Nicole Babnick, HR director at Avalon Health Care and former attorney and investigator, one of the best ways to check your biases at the door is simply to acknowledge that you have them. This act of self-awareness emphasizes just one of the four areas that make up emotional intelligence (EI). And, according to Babnick, EI can make or break an investigative interview.

In her session, “Emotional Intelligence: The ‘Je Ne Sais Quoi’ That Sets You Apart,” Babnick discussed how self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management can each play a part in conducting a successful investigation. And, believe it or not, none of them have anything to do with your business acumen, where you went to school or what characteristics you were born with. While many of us attended the first day of the ACFE Global Fraud Conference to learn how to improve our auditing, compliance, risk management and other skills, those make up only half of what we need to be sharpening.

“It’s not enough to just be good at analyzing data,” she said. “Your intelligence and your emotional intelligence work together in tandem. You are most effective when you can do both of them together.”

So, what does EI look and feel like in action? Below are descriptions of how you can use the four tenets of EI to complement your already polished fraud examination skills:

Self-awareness: As mentioned before, checking biases is just one of the ways to home in on your self-awareness. By definition, self-awareness is how your emotions influence your thoughts and actions. It could be biases, which are hidden or not as obvious, or emotions that can be read on your face. Babnick said feelings like anger and sadness can be conveyed with subtle facial expressions and come across in your tone of voice. She also said to be aware enough to dress for the occasion; both the physical location and how you are presenting yourself as an authority. She also reminded attendees that they might feel uncomfortable themselves while trying to make an interviewee feel comfortable enough to share. “As an investigator, you handle all types of issues: race-based discrimination, sexual harassment,” she said. “We may personally be disgusted by a situation; we all come to the table with different biases. We need to be aware of that. We don’t have to agree with someone, but we do have to listen to them.”

Self-management: Managing your stress while staying focused and organized all contribute to how you can stay emotionally present. “If you have 10 thousand things on your to do list, you aren’t going to be present,” she said. “Find a way to be more mindful. Create an environment where you can better elicit information. Focus on the task at hand.” She said this can show up as checking your email during an interview or meeting or responding to a text message when you should be listening and engaging. Anything that hinders your ability to focus should be managed responsibly. You don’t want to be the reason an interviewee withdraws or shuts down. This is also part of the confidence you walk in with. Be confident in your abilities and role. Be an active listener. She advised having an outline of topics to go over instead of using prewritten questions that you read off.

Social awareness: Practicing empathy and walking into a room knowing you are going to learn from what and who is in there is an upper hand to getting information. Social awareness is, at its simplest, knowing how to read a room and using the data you collect to help you understand, empathize and build relationships. As Babnick said, it’s “finding how you fit in to an environment and using that to your advantage. If you can pick up that someone isn’t comfortable, you can help make them more comfortable. Throw them a softball question to help build rapport. Conversely, you can point out if someone is uncomfortable. What I have done is I say ‘It looks like my question makes you feel uncomfortable. Tell me what is going on.’” Another part of social awareness is helping make others feel like they are heard. “Sometimes people want a chance to explain what they have done wrong,” she said. “Give people the chance to tell their story.”

Relationship management: We all have, at one time or another, met someone and dismissed them based on a first impression. “This is the same thing that happens with an interview If you let these types of biases come out. This will ruin your interview,” Babnick said. “Present facts in a neutral way. Look at your past interviews and see how you could improve it. Look at relationships that went well and look at the ones that didn’t.” She also advised attendees to set expectations early on. “Explain the interview process, explain your own role in the company as a neutral fact gatherer and why you are there. Let them ask questions. Give them a chance to ask clarifying questions. This helps them be more engaged and build trust. Ask is there anything else and explain the next steps,” she said. This is all part of building a solid relationship that will lead to honesty, trust and information.

I have met countless fraud examiners over the years, all with investigative skills learned through experience, education and practice. I have met people like Mark Nigrini, who knew Benford’s Law frontwards and backwards, and Harry Markopolos, a “quant” who can identify a fraud in minutes just by looking at the books. Knowing that adding EI to the equation could only broaden the skills of a fraud examiner makes for a very frightened criminal.