Page 227 - Deception at work all chapters EBook

228 Deception at Work

The most usual response from both honest and deceptive subjects to the question ‘Tell me
everything you know about x’ is: ‘Where do you want me to start?’ Your response should be:
‘Everything you think could be relevant’.

Open questions provide no template for deception

At this point the dishonest suspect will normally press for more clarification before re-
sponding, usually because he is concerned to find out how much you know. The innocent
person is normally much more confident, not at risk and will just give his answers.

Always consider using open questions that focus on the subject’s emotions, feelings and
attitudes and which require him to consult with the subconscious monkey.

Example :
• ‘What do you least like about yourself?’
• ‘What is the worst thing you have ever done?’
• ‘What were you thinking when you went to the post box?’
• ‘What do you feel should happen to people who make false claims?’

If you ask a person, ‘Please tell me everything you know about the missing money’, you
give him no clues about how much you know and force him to define the boundaries of the
story, prologue, critical issues and epilogue. If he asks, ‘What do you want me to cover?’, the
answer should be, ‘Tell me everything you think is relevant’.

YOU KNOW WHY I AM HERE?

The head of accounting in the advertising boards and posters.
division of a leading British retailer lived in a Over the course of a year his Porsche
small apartment in an Essex estate. During
the day he was a model of frugality and accumulated a bundle of parking and
took the tube and corned beef sandwiches speeding tickets, mainly outside clubs in
to work. At night and weekends and during the West End of London, which the man
holidays he was a raver. He owned a Porsche, ignored. The police became fed up and one
fancy clothes, jewellery and generally weekend sent a young constable around to
lived the high life, drank champagne and see him. When the man opened his front
ate caviar. His wealth was accumulated by door the constable said, ‘I am sure you know
setting up dummy companies that allegedly why I am here’, and to his great amazement
supplied his employer with signs, display the man admitted to a £1 million fraud on
his employer.

We should always be consciously aware of the assistance closed questions give a liar in
framing his responses.

Questions about feelings and attitudes get directly into the subject’s subconscious, making
it more likely that the truth or Freudian slips will emerge, or that by bringing unpalatable facts
into focus, his anxiety will increase.