Blog

Bridging the Generational Gap Over the Millennial Gorge

One thing that I’ve always emphasized in the training sessions that I provide with Wicklander-Zulawski (WZ) on the WZ Non-Confrontational Method of Interviewing, is the ability to utilize the WZ techniques and theories in every day communication.  The theories weren’t developed to only be utilized during the formal, structured investigative interviews you may be conducting in the workplace.  Instead, the theories are about encouraging, and more frequently obtaining, honesty...

Transitioning Your Interview Skills Beyond Loss Prevention

Many loss prevention professionals have built their career on the ability to diffuse conflict with shoplifters and encourage dishonest employees to tell the truth about what they stole.  In fact, our interview skills are often a significant point of pride for us.  It is commonly understood that the techniques that make us so successful during our investigative interviews can create advantages for us in other conversations as well.  Below...

Protect the Paws: A K-9 Cause

Whose Side Are You On?

Change.  A scary word, and a difficult concept to grasp for many.  Scarier and more troubling are the following reactions we often hear to a suggestion of change: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” “But that’s the way we’ve always done it” “I’ve been doing this for (X) amount of years” I’m sure we have all heard some of the above, and probably have even caught ourselves saying...

Cultural Interview Lessons From the Road

The WZ Non-Confrontational Interview method has been a part of my career for over 28 years now, and I’m happy to say that I’ve been working for WZ for 19 years.  Through the years much has changed for both myself and WZ.  One of the biggest changes for WZ is the huge International reach we now provide with our training classes.  Did you know WZ has operations in Latin...

I’m WZ Trained – What’s Next?

One of the most common questions we get at our training seminars on Interview & Interrogation Techniques is: “What’s next?” This is a great question considering attendees just sat through at least a 16 hour program packed with an enormous amount of content. This highly educational information certainly increased the knowledge of those attending, but did little to increase their actual skills. I can read countless Golf Digest magazines,...

Any Questions? Preparing for a Sexual Harassment Investigation

Ready to Interrogate? Don’t Bet On It!

You flop the straight flush and the player before you raises into you. You hide your reaction attempting to contain your excitement about your pending payday as it is almost as sure a bet as the sun rising in the morning.  As the play continues and your anticipated winnings lay scattered in the middle of the table, you see the turn card and then the river and realize you’re...

Are You Ready?

The New Year is a time for resolutions; where we try do something a bit better than last year.  Making a small change which enables us to be prouder of who we are. So I would ask you to think about how you handle and resolve investigations. Last year we saw several injustices coming to light.  There were miscarriages of justice where people had been convicted of crimes they...

4th Quarter Playbook

While a football game can take only 60 minutes of actual playing time, the preparation for such a game takes 12 months of hard work.  There are a lot of similarities between a game and life.  Just like in the game, we are committed to winning. Not just you, but your organization’s goal is focused on winning as well. One of the things I always tell my children is...