Soft skills days in February 2020 at IIA Belgium

Soft skills are important for all humans living together in society, but they are critical for internal

auditors in order to successfully deliver their assurance and consulting services.

IIA Belgium is very proud to invite Joan Pastor to Brussels to facilitate a number of outstanding

courses for our internal auditors:

1. Effective interviewing skills for internal auditors (1 day).

2. Outstanding negotiation and conflict management skills for internal auditors (2 days).

3. Using critical thinking and emotional intelligence skills for personal and leadership

development (1 day).

4. The psychology behind fraud, unethical behavior and white collar crime (1 day).

Anyone who registers for 2 days of the above training events can attend a third day for free.

This offer is also valid for two separate registrations within a group membership.

Effective interviewing skills for internal auditors

(12 February 2020)

This program focuses on the skills needed for a typical audit process; interviewing in

situations of suspected fraud is not the focus here, though many of the skills covered are

applicable to fraud interviewing as well. The workshop lays out a step-by-step process for

conducting an interview that focuses on several key principles. It is especially helpful to

those performing collaborative, risk-based and process focused audits, or for interviewing

those in similar, technical types of professions.

First, interviewing is a process that requires both structure (i.e., when to ask open-ended

questions, when to use a step-by-step process and when not) as well as flexibility (i.e., getting

away from the checklist mentality). Second, interviewing requires specific and important

communication skills, such as active listening combined with follow-up probing, or using the

appropriate tone of voice and body language. Third, interviewing requires a certain degree of

planning. For example, the more clearly you know your objective for the interview before you

meet, the better the quality of information gathered. Finally, interviewing requires a certain

collaborative and consultative mind-set. You want to use the interview to assist the audit to

moving to the next step while maximizing the “value-added” approach in order to maximize

buy- in and self-disclosure from the client. In addition, dozens of tips and strategies that

experienced interviewers use will be shared as well.

The order of events and content may be changed dependent upon the needs of the group.

Role-plays are an important part of the training, and other exercises occur throughout the day.

Interviewing Skills for Auditors

I. Introduction

A. Introduce self and participants

B. Explain objectives

C. Participant involvement

D. Timing of course

E. What information do you need?

II. The Collaborative Approach to Interviewing

A. The Three Types of Interviewing

B. The Purpose of Interviews: Knowing Your Objectives

C. Collaborative Interviewing: What Is It and How It Enhances Your Audit Skills

D. Difficulties with Conciliatory and Competitive Approaches

E. Why you do not do “interrogations”

III. Where Interviewing and Interviewing Skills Fits Into the Overall Audit Process

A. Information-gathering and Interviewing Skills- the critical component

B. Showing and Demonstrating Value- what exactly to do

C. Handling Resistance from the client

D. Negotiation skills and tips

E. Closing Skills- Stating Outcomes and getting the Results You need

IV. Six Steps of the Collaborative Interviewing Process

A. Preparation/planning

B. Initial meeting

C. Information gathering

D. Information clarification

E. Closing/ending

F. Documenting/evaluation

V. Planning

A. Aiming the interview

B. Developing questions

1. How to use a checklist effectively, if at all

C. Scheduling appointments

D. How to develop your ideas and strategy before the interview

E. Other do's and don'ts

VI. The Initial Meeting (Opening the Interview)

A. Establishing goals and objectives

B. Dress and appearance

C. Note-taking vs. audio taping: which to use, and how?

D. Establishing your “interviewee baseline”

1. What is this baseline and why is it critical?

2. Establishing congruence and rapport to develop the baseline

3. What questions to ask, what cues in body language and verbalizations to look for, etc.

E. Establishing objectivity, neutrality, and expectations

F. How to position oneself (physical arrangement)

G. Other do's and don'ts

VII. Information Gathering

A. Using investigative vs. suggestive vs. test questions

B. Listening, listening and more listening!

1. Paraphrasing (paraphrasing exercise)

2. The art of probing and following up

3. Numerous other listening skills as appropriate

4. Building rapport quickly through subtle listening techniques

C. Subtle tactics to facilitate memory retrieval in interviewing

1. Chunking

2. Backwards to forwards

3. When to use each

D. Doing a midway check (meeting objective?)

VIII. Information Clarification

A. Structuring Techniques to gather more detailed, accurate information

1. Spiraling- a step-by-step process for carrying out the interview

a. How the spiral process incorporates all you learned about interviewing

b. How spiraling increases the chances the interviewee will open up

2. Bridging and transitioning topics

3. Effective Use of Open vs. Closed Questions

4. Other tools that encourage the client to open up to you

B. What to do when they know more than you regarding the situation

C. Wording and tone of voice

D. How to increase your effectiveness through subtle influencing skills

E. Questions to ask in most audits, specific questions for your industry

IX. How to Read Your Interviewee (discussed throughout the day)

A. Body language

1. Expressions

2. Posture

3. Touching

4. Eyes

B. How to tell when someone is lying

1. Tips and what the research indicates

C. Cultural differences and the impact on interviewing success

1. Some of the main cultural issues to be aware of

X. Handling Resistant Individuals During Interviews

A. Your experiences

B. Focus on the situation, not the personality of the person

C. When the person appears stubborn to you

1. Stubborn/resistant vs. manipulative: a big difference

2. How to handle each type of situation

D. Defusion process- how to calm down upset people on the spot

E. Non-manipulative and subtle influencing skills

XI. How to Prevent Conflict and Deliberately Build Collaboration

A. Additional non-manipulative and partnering skills to use

B. How to quickly get on the other person’s “wavelength”, and

Establish rapport with almost any kind of individual

XII. Ending the Interview

A. The final summary

B. What to do if you have to come back to interview again

C. Meeting check

XIII. Documenting and Evaluating the Interview

A. Office policy on note-taking, audiotaping, etc.

B. Pros and cons of documenting during the interview

C. What works for you

XIV. Close and Action Plans

Outstanding negotiation and conflict management skills for internal auditors

(13-14 February 2020)

Communication and conflict management skills are core competencies for all levels of the

internal audit profession. This course focuses on communication and conflict resolution skills

needed during all stages of the audit. Whether the auditor is encountering conflict in the pre-

audit preparatory stage, at the opening conference, during interim feedback meetings on

findings during the fieldwork phase, at the closing conference or in follow-up, all the knowledge

and skills laid out below are necessary for maximum results. This course lays the foundation for

many others of the “people skills” that auditors can use, ranging from facilitating meetings and

giving presentations to interviewing, leadership skills for projects and developing collaborative

relationships with clients.

Day One

Introduction

• Why conflict management and negotiation skills are critical skills in the audit profession

• What exactly is conflict management, what exactly does negotiation mean in auditing

• The win/win approach to conflict resolution and negotiations: what does “win/win” actually

mean?

• Is a win/win approach always desirable in auditing?

• Is your own personal philosophy and approach towards auditees making things better or worse?

How Conflict Evolves

• How conflict evolves how to sometimes prevent conflict

• Understanding the 3 stages of conflict

• The role of expectations in conflict, and why this is so powerful to know

• What it means when the same conflict or problem keeps coming up again and again

• If time, conflict points across the typical audit meeting

Can Conflict Be Prevented or Mitigated?

• Three critical skills and perspectives necessary to have in order to head conflict off before it

begins

• The single most effective listening skill for preventing or reducing conflict

o Myths and truths about listening skills

o Listening, feedback and unique responding related to conflict reduction

• When you are the cause of (some) conflicts

o How to know when it’s you?

o How to manage your own emotions during difficult audits and meetings

o How to handle the negative voice in your head and inner stress before, during and after

a difficult interaction

Discover Conflict Management and Negotiation Styles: Yours and Theirs

• Learning your own and other audit clients' specific conflict and negotiations styles

• How to assess their style

• Learn hundreds of strategies, tips and techniques for negotiating with different types of styles

• Personal power: how to ensure you do not feel the “victim” in a negotiation

• Professionalism: how to ensure you do not make them feel the “victim” in the negotiation

• Avoiding the wrong approach

• How the way you give and receive information tells others about your approach

• Knowing when and how exactly to communicate forcefully while maintaining professionalism

Negotiating for Results

• Creating an effective negotiation environment

• When and where should auditors negotiate and when should they not

• Verbals and Body Language to use, especially when you experience resistance or conflict

• Establishing a win-win atmosphere

• The basics of negotiation: the step-by-step process for collaborative negotiations

• How to get the actual negotiations started and begin getting the issues out on the table

• Very specific listening skills to use at this point

• How much information to communicate and what not to say

• Numerous techniques for building common ground

o Separating areas of common agreement from areas of resistance

o Specific techniques for resolving differences in opinion and perception

o Handling negative reactions to audit findings, wording in reports, etc.

o Coming to the best solutions

o What specifically to do when you cannot come to the best solution for both parties

o Why “paper has power”, and how to use note-taking and paper as a persuasive tool during

the negotiations

• What exactly to summarize and write out at the end of the meeting

• How to caucus and leverage time, information and resources to get even better results

• Closing the negotiation meeting: what to do after

• How this whole process is modified depending on the phase of the audit

• What exactly to do to stay calm if the other person puts you in the “hot seat”

• How to ensure you are not contributing to the problem

• An exercise to practice

Defusing Angry Confrontations

• Giving bad news to the client

o A step-by-step process

o Giving bad news and defusion: two powerful skills that go together

• The three steps to defusing negative emotion that suddenly arises

• How to make venting a solution instead of a problem

• Resolving conflict through fact-finding

• Lots of tips and strategies for handling “Difficult” clients

• Manipulation: what it is actually, and what to do

• When the auditor needs to kick the problem up to the management level

o What it means, and what to do, when nothing you try works!

Resistance, resistance and more resistance

• The psychology behind resistance and what exactly you must do

• How to handle "passive resistance" and all kinds of passive-resistant behavior

• Getting around the other parties’ resistance with 3 key words

Role Play practice

Day Two

Advanced Conflict Resolution Skills

• Negotiation between two external parties: the art of mediation

• A step-by-step process for mediating conflicts between different people in a meeting

• Managing tempers or outbursts between two other people

• Getting to the real root of the problem

• Special practice on mediation

Non-Manipulative and Subtle Influencing Skills that really Work

• Introduction to Influence Management

• Matching and Pacing Techniques

• Why you must build rapport and “congruence”, and how to do so

• Taking the Congruence Inventory: How well can you really influence?

• Benefit Statements- What they are and Why they are so Important

• Using Words, Voice and Physical Movement Effectively

• (And what words and movements to avoid)

• Using group dynamic techniques to manage individual one-on-one meetings

• Two exercises to practice some of these skills

A powerful exercise to bring all the communication, conflict management and negotiation skills

together

• Gain first-hand knowledge on how to bring all the components for resolving conflicts

together

• Learn you own particular strengths and weaknesses

• Learn how it is often possible to resolve issues and find win-win solutions to problems that

appear impossible to resolve

• Applications of what you learned to your audits.

o Gain first-hand knowledge on how to bring all the components for resolving conflicts

together

• Learn you own particular strengths and weaknesses

• Learn how it is often possible to resolve issues and find win-win solutions to problems that

appear impossible to resolve

• Applications of what you learned to your audits.

Close

• Action plan: how to increase and reinforce the strengths I have discovered

• Action plan: how to reduce and manage some challenges I have discovered

• Next steps: what I will start implementing immediately upon return to office

Using critical thinking and emotional intelligence skills for personal and

leadership development

(17 February 2020)

Being an auditor is not easy. You have to know how to gather the right data, know how to

analyze it properly, fit it into the larger organization and their vision, mission and strategic goals,

and then communicate what you see in such a way that people will want to listen and take

action. You are influencing and change agents, and have a lot to offer. Doing all this, and

manage other people’s impressions, expectations, and willingness to collaborate – is also not

easy, as we well know. But, you will be even more effective when you FIRST learn how to

manage yourself- your mind, your emotions, your behaviors and your reactions. All of this is a

part of critical thinking skills, which I also call “Intelligent thinking.”

The best (and shortest!) definition I ever heard of Critical Thinking is “being an effective critic of

your own thinking.” I would modify that to say it is being an effective observer of your own

emotions and thinking, from which you continue to learn more about yourself and make better

and better decisions, leading to desired behavior and outcomes.”

Managing yourself to be excellent at your work is very challenging- and extremely rewarding.

Self-awareness, knowing how to maximize one’s strengths, letting go of stress and harnessing

the power of your beliefs, skills and especially your emotions will continue to develop a solid

inner and professional foundation from which confidence and correct action can grow. This one

day course will address core issues of how the human being truly functions and prospers. You

will learn specific skills that will enhance both your people and technical skills from inside out.

This is the place where you learn once and for all what is required to manage your emotions and

harness your mind to work for you. You will learn things here that no one else has told you-

promise- and they are designed to help you develop the best Mindset for being the best

manager, leader and professional that you can be. In this fun, powerful and interactive

workshop, you will learn include:

Part One: An Introduction to Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinking is just deliberately and systematically processing information so that you can

understand the information accurately and make better decisions. Critical thinking requires you

to apply diverse intellectual tools to diverse information. Critical thinking also leads to more,

and better, creative thinking and innovation.

“Critical thinking is the opposite of regular, everyday thinking.”

Source: Ransom Patterson — Editor in Chief, Collegeinfogeek.com

“Critical thinking should not be the opposite of regular, everyday thinking.”

Source: Joan Pastor, PhD

1. Different definitions of “critical thinking.”.

2. Ways to critically think about information include:

a. Conceptualizing, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating

3. However, THAT information comes from sources such as:

a. Observation, experience, reflection, reasoning and communication

b. The power of paying attention

4. And all this is meant to guide:

a. Beliefs

b. Decisions

c. Action

5. The foundation: the three types of logical reasoning (induction, abduction and

deduction)

6. Core critical thinking skills and how they apply to being and sounding (even) more

intelligent!

a. The art of generalization and developing the bird’s eye perspective

b. Exposition vs. Argument

c. Many more below in parts two and three

d. Exercise: 10 fallacies that cause irrational thinking

7. The four stages of creative thinking applied to critical thinking

a. Preparation, Incubation, Persistence, Eurekas, big and little. And repeat.

8. Getting skeptical about “professional skepticism”- until you know what that REALLY

means

Part Two: Developing Self-Awareness and Self-Mastery Cycles: the place from which all

intelligent thinking and emotional management begins

1. Self-awareness and accountability: The critical link for developing objectivity

2. What exactly it means to be accountable

3. Psychological blinders that get in our way and a tool for breaking or at least managing

them

a. Behavioral chains

4. The connection between accountability and ethical decision-making

5. Using these cycles to uncover examples of deeply entrenched analytical biases

a. The “Argument of the Beard,” Jump to Judgment and Analysis Paralysis

b. The perceptual problem these biases cause for tech professionals

Part Three: Emotional Intelligence

The newest research in neuropsychology continues to show how powerful our thoughts and

feelings are to our internal sense of self-confidence and our belief in our ability to be successful-

and happy- in our lives. How you think, what you feel and what you do with those thoughts and

feelings have a profound impact on your position as a manager or executive as well. The way

you handle yourself is closely watched and modeled by others, and while this may sound

frightening, it is also a perfect opportunity to teach others and demonstrate your effectiveness

as a leader.

1. What is emotional intelligence (EI) and how do you measure it?

2. How emotions and critical thinking work together to create accurate and healthy

perspectives

3. The four areas that impact your emotional awareness and responses

4. The role that stress plays in emotion, vice versa, and the ultimate unintended impact on

others

5. Subtle uses of emotional intelligence to establish rapport quickly and influence others

6. What exactly it is you need to focus on and cultivate in order to begin to get a hold on

unhelpful thoughts and beliefs

7. Several tools for managing difficult emotions that works best for you

8. The connection between optimism, positive psychology and achieving successful

concrete results in your life

Part IV: Putting It All Together

Expect to leave with a whole new way to think about thinking, and a fresh approach to your

work and how to maximize the strengths of your profession.

The psychology behind fraud, unethical behavior and white collar crime (18 February 2020)

Though senior executives have figured prominently in recent fraud cases, people at all levels and of all backgrounds and professions are capable of committing fraud. Understanding the psychological forces behind fraudulent behavior is critical to detecting, preventing and dealing with fraud.

One of the least discussed reasons behind unethical behavior is related to a small group of people who, with the right combination of inner traits and smarts, can cause the most damage to an organization. It is this small (estimated 5-7%) group who can be the deadliest killers of all to your company, and almost no amount of audit rigor or financial analysis is going to smoke them out. It is this group that is behind most of the larger (and costliest) fraudulent crimes. In this course, the distinction between these two groups of criminals will be made clear, with suggestions and discussions on what can be done about it in your organization.

Joan Pastor, PhD, a noted clinical and industrial-organizational psychologist, first began studying this phenomenon when she saw a bright man single-handedly destroy a small (but highly successful) brokerage firm she was consulting with 20 years ago. She continued to observe this phenomenon in various forms over the years. By bringing both clinical and business research together, she has identified a syndrome, or a pattern of traits and behavior that explain these type of people, how to identify them, and external conditions in a company that encourage these people to make their plays. As a Certified Speaking Professional, Joan delivers her programs with humor, timely references, original research and implementation experience at many major clients. She has over two decades of speaking, coaching, consulting and training experience.

• Introduction o The Psychology of Fraud: A critical tool for senior level managers o How psychologists look at and work with fraud and why this is important to you o Why you haven’t heard about this before

• How and why normal people commit fraud o Most people are already ethical o The 5 proven traits for mentally healthy (and successful) employees

• The research on deception and lying o The attribution bias and how it works in organizations o Other human traits that make us all vulnerable

• The 5-7%: A whole different world of people o The “Syntonic Syndrome”: a general definition o Ego-Syntonic people and the lack of accountability o True stories

▪ The Syntonic Syndrome: 5 Key Characteristics and Behaviors

o Accountability o Personality Disorder o IQ o Differential treatment to people o Control over decision-making or weak processes o An optional sixth: an addiction

▪ Personality Disorders: Eleven types and three “clusters” o Which ones especially connected to fraud and white-collar crime? o Special focus on one cluster o True stories o Exercise

▪ IQ o Makes all the difference in white collar crime o Tied to success rate of white collar crimes

▪ Differential treatment of people o Signs to look for and what to do about it

▪ There are a lot of signs! o The creation of collusion

▪ Collusion and its connection to fraud

▪ Control over decision-making processes and weak processes o Going after specific positions in organization tied to certain processes o The syntonic person’s special ability to deceive through high creativity

• Organizational traits and situations that encourage the Syntonic Syndrome: some examples

o “All or none” mentality ▪ Cowboy organizational culture vs. other types of organizational cultures

o Laissez-faire management style ▪ Including a laissez-faire attitude towards risk ▪ Highly entrepreneurial person holds the power

o Performance reward systems o Inefficient business, financial and organizational systems

▪ Lack a proper understanding of risk, and where the organization should be focusing their risk management efforts

▪ Lack controls or proper monitoring of controls o False sense of security

▪ Special factors when a public agency or rural community

• The Syntonic Syndrome and Whistle blowing practices o The bad news about whistleblowing procedures and reporting syntonic people o What really makes a person blow the whistle?

• What can be done? What can be done? What can be done? o What can be done at the individual level?

▪ By you- the auditor, risk professional, and/or finance professional ▪ By HR\ ▪ By ALL other individuals in the company, regardless of position

o What can be done at Management levels?

• Using the company’s vision, mission, philosophy and values

• Role modeling

• Executives are the most vulnerable to the 5-7%! Learn how and why, and how to prevent this

• Support ethics training done in-house and require every person to attend, with executives first

• Communication to the workforce: what and how?

• Yet more that can be done

• Bringing it home: What can we do? o Brainstorm and action plan