IAM255- Investigator Develops Programs to Address Effective Interviewing and Investigations

Mark has two degrees in chemistry and currently works as the Director of Training and Development at Anderson Investigative Associates. Prior to that he served as a Program Manager and Instructor for the Inspector General Criminal Investigator Academy and at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in the Behavioral Science Division. He has served as a Senior Special Agent for the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Investigations, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Additionally, he served as a Deputy Inspector General and Director of Internal Audit for the New York State Office of the Inspector General and as a forensic chemist for the New York State Police.

• CEO Hack: Integrity and credibility
• CEO Nugget: Don't hesitate to reach out to experts to help with your weak areas
• CEO Defined: Cooperation, communication and collaboration to move your message forward

Website: http://andersoninvestigative.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-a-anderson-a46a1658/

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Mark Anderson of Anderson Investigative Associates. Mark, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Mark Anderson 0:36

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate Gresham,

Gresham Harkless 0:39

No problem, I appreciate you for taking some time out and what I want to do, which is read a little bit more about Mark so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Mark has two degrees in chemistry and currently works as the Director of Training and Development at Anderson Investigative Associates. Prior to that, he served as a Program Manager and Instructor for the Inspector General Criminal Investigator Academy and at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in the Behavioral Science Division.

He has served as a Senior Special Agent for the U.S. Department of Justice, the Office of the Inspector General, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Office of Investigations, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Additionally, he served as a Deputy Inspector General and Director of Internal Audit for the New York State Office of the Inspector General and as a forensic chemist for the New York State Police. Mark, are you ready to speak to the IAM CEO community?

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Mark Anderson 1:31

I absolutely am.

Gresham Harkless 1:33

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So let's do it. So I know I touched on it a little bit, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Mark Anderson 1:40

Okay, well, it's a long story. And clearly, from reading through my bio, I'm pretty old. I've been around for a while. And I don't know if you get anything out of that bio other than I can't hold a job for very long. But I spent over 30 years in the law enforcement investigation and audit arena, retired from the federal government has spent the last five years as you said, teaching interview and interrogation skills to investigators, auditors, inspectors, and others.

This training was provided all over the country to a very diverse audience. And I realized in doing that, over that five years that there was an incredible need for effective non-confrontational interview training in all facets of the private and public sectors,s and felt a calling and a desire to meet it.

So one day after retirement, we started Anderson Investigative Associates, a small boutique firm to provide customized interview and investigation training to our clients, I say we because my wife and I started the business together. She's, in fact, the CEO, and runs the business and finance side of things. And I'm the curriculum developer and trainer. In a later com, I'm going to speak to credibility and integrity.

So I want to make it very clear right up front that to show that there's consistency in my life, I'm in charge of nothing. That's why she runs the business and I work for her, and it just goes across the board. It makes things much easier at this point in my life.

Gresham Harkless 3:12

There go that makes perfect sense. It's all about playing to your strengths. So he makes sure that you married somebody that could definitely help you out. So you made it the smartest move ever. So you can make sure that she can drive the car, I guess, so to speak. And you can just make sure you provide your expertise.

Mark Anderson 3:26

Or run along beside it.

Gresham Harkless 3:29

Depends on the day of the week, right?

Mark Anderson 3:31

That's right.

Gresham Harkless 3:32

Awesome. I love it. I love it. So I know you touched on it a little bit. And I know I touched on it a little bit. You know when I read your bio, I appreciate not having to say all the acronyms and everything because I know that is Government speak a lot. So I had a chance to actually say it out. So could you tell us a little bit more about what you're doing with your business?

Mark Anderson 3:49

Sure, sure. As it kind of indicated, we're small enough that we custom design programs for clients, no matter what niche they're in, we focus on the nuances that make their organization unique and address obstacles that they perceive when it comes to interviewing investigations and audits.

With these in mind, we develop programs that are specific for that entity, we build the programs they run usually a day or two anywhere, you know, a day to a week in length, depending on how much training they want to receive the program address things like effective interviewing, report development, interview planning, how to ask questions better, how to handle denials that you might get in the interview setting.

And the best way is to present evidence and the importance of themes and persuasion in the interview. In addition to this, we teach things like public corruption, employee misconduct, ethical decision making effective leadership skills, and a plethora of other topics. You know, the key here, it's not necessarily it sounds very law enforcement related, but most of the examples that I give in the classes that I teach have to do with having kids and whether you had kids or your children at one time, what we're looking at is those things that kids do when they're not completely honest with us.

So you know, you get in the interview environment with auditors and you can't say things like subject and suspect. So we coined our own term for it, which is LLPOF. And I know you're a little younger than me Gresham, but I don't know if you remember the acronym, Liar, liar pants on fire.

Gresham Harkless 5:22

I do remember that

Mark Anderson 5:23

It really anybody that's sitting across from us, that's choosing not to be honest with us. So it applies. It has application in the sales arena, it has an application in every area of life, actually, you know. So once we were asked to develop one of the things we were asked to develop who we don't use the same stuff all the time, but our clients will come to us and say, Hey, we're very interested in a block on this or a block on that I was asked to develop a block on the law of reciprocity and how it applies in the interviewing realm.

So I developed that for this group. And I've been amazed how many times since then, other groups have said, You know what, I'd really like to have that presented to our audience as well. So it helps me to focus more and helps me not to get locked into stuff that I have that standby material, but we develop new material all the time.

Gresham Harkless 6:15

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And you kind of already touched on because I was going to ask you when you say interview, are you talking about any type of interview I know when we talked a little bit offline, we were just talking about, I guess, at the general basis of human interaction and being able to kind of make sure that you can read people's cues and understand what's going on.

Mark Anderson 6:31

That's exactly right. And that's a hard thing. It's really a hard thing. When I come out of the investigation realm. I've had audit experience, but when I go into, you know, auditors who are essentially accountants, one of the issues that I run into all the time is well, yeah, but you're talking about investigations. And really, that's not true. I'm talking about any human act interaction.

I mean, I could ask you, you know, people you've run into in your life who were not particularly honest with you or they were not upfront with you, it would give you the ability to better be able to read that. You know, we talked about nonverbals, and we'll look at nonverbal and nonverbals are not really good tools for that even the best-trained investigators are about 51% accurate with nonverbals. But when you take the nonverbals and fit them with the verbals, it's much easier to detect deception in the way people say things.

So, you know, one of the things we do is we use a lot of videos in our training. There aren't a lot of videos out there of interviewing, except in the homicide realm. So we have a lot of murder cases. So you go into teaching auditors or white-collar crime investigators. And they're like, well, this doesn't apply to us. This is murder. But the truth is that a liar looks like a liar and looks like a liar. So some of those murders I look at on the screen, I say, Oh, that looks like my son, because he has those same things that he does when he distorts.

Gresham Harkless 7:55

And now I want to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this might be for you or your organization. But what do you feel kind of sets you guys apart?

Mark Anderson 8:00

I think the thing that sets us apart, it really is our small size. Because we've talked about expanding at times and bringing other people in, I've had people teach my stuff before I'm not really happy necessarily with the way they teach it. I think I'm too invested in it. And at this point in my career, I'm not really looking to do that I'm looking to provide a very unique product.

And that product includes us being small size, so I can develop it. So I think that secret sauce is partly building these programs from the ground up, it makes a lot more work for us. But we can do this because of the extensive experience and exposure we've had to so many organizations and so many styles. We see our competitors are many of the big box providers in the interviewing realm.

They provide the same training wherever they go. They go into Home Depot, they provide that training, they go into a government agency, they provide that training, they cover important subjects, no question, but they force attendees to fit it into their own matrix. And we feel that by customizing it using their language, and their examples, we make incorporating the process of our training much easier, and therefore more effective and seamless in application.

Gresham Harkless 9:12

I want to just switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Mark Anderson 9:21

Yeah, and this is the one I was talking about. earlier about talking about the issue of integrity and credibility, I would have to say that harkens to that issue completely because so much else comes off of that incumbent in that is responsiveness to our potential clients, we have to have that integrity and credibility when we deal with them. If we're not meeting if we don't see a fit. I'm not taking the job in that half doesn't happen a lot. When there's money on the table.

Take the job, even though it's not a good fit. I'm not going there. We teach these two topics all the time and the interviewing round. Research shows that over 60% of I'll call them bad guys, the people that are distorting in the end interview room, over 60% of bad guys admit to what they did because of the credibility and integrity of the interviewer.

So because that person sitting across from them is being honest and showing integrity with them, they're able to admit to what they did. Think about it in your own life. If you're talking to somebody who has lied to you in the past, how much do you actually share with that person?

Foolish if you shared a lot with them. So having that integrity and credibility and demonstrating it in a way we do, interviewing, and especially in the nonconfrontational round gets a success, when you look at that statistic, that's the number one tool in the tool belt, and we best not give it up in the realm of interviewing or in life in general, you know, what do they say integrity is the only thing you can take to the grave with you. And I think I'm gonna just keep mine.

Gresham Harkless 10:46

Yeah, you might as well make perfect sense. Now, it's funny, because that's what you touched on as far as the reciprocity, like whatever you kind of put out as far as energy or whatever, not only does it manifest itself in the outside world, but just like you said, it's not anything different from the interview room when you're speaking across from somebody.

Mark Anderson 11:02

Absolutely. And just so you when you see TV interviewing, right, and you see the guy yelling, you know, the interviewer yelling at the interviewee. And he wonders why he doesn't count anything. I mean, think about it. Why would you get something with that law of reciprocity, you're getting back exactly what you gave.

Gresham Harkless 11:20

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's all fun and games when you're yelling, You can't handle the truth in front of TV cameras, but it's not so good if you're doing an interview. Yeah, that makes sense. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Mark Anderson 11:38

Don't hesitate to reach out to experts to undergird your weaker areas. We can't be the masters of all, despite the fact that I've worked around bosses and politicians that think they can that arrogance, or ignorance as the case may be, it's caused many failures, unnecessary work, and much pain, find that confidence that you can grow together with build partnerships.

And remember, my last answer with regard to the issue of integrity and credibility, is as you grow the relationship, consider with those individuals, are meeting the same standard and the same beliefs that you have in that realm so that you don't run crosswise with that as you go down the road. And when I say that, you know, not coming from this position where I've got it all down, I didn't do that as early in building the business as I should have, I thought, oh, I can master this I can get on top of this. And the other thing is, sometimes it costs money.

And if you're starting out, you don't have that financial capital to invest in it. So you take it on yourself, and then you have a harder time divesting of it. I wish I'd done that sooner, especially with the business aspects, because I find I spend so much time on the business aspects. And I don't spend time on really what my dream and my mission is, which is the development of the interviewing stuff.

Gresham Harkless 12:58

Now, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, Mark. And this is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So I want to ask you Mark, what is being CEO mean to you?

Mark Anderson 13:08

I think it's about cooperation and collaboration, encouraging a dynamic to move your message forward while displaying a character that is clear and enticing to your clients. There's got to be that consistency. And we have to demonstrate it consistently in dealing with coworkers and dealing with partners and dealing with clients. I think that that has a certain appeal in today's environment that draw people to walk with you. And so I think that's probably would be the most successful thing is that ability to do that. That ability to communicate with people that way is, to me one of the most important things in that regard.

Gresham Harkless 13:46

Well, Mark, I truly appreciate your time, what I wanted to do is pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get hold of you?

Mark Anderson 13:55

Like to share something about that. Gresham, I'm excited about the diversity of individuals and businesses, you feature on this podcast. Because after we start talking, I started going through and saying, you know, that's probably why I wanted a question to you, what do you really think I'm a good fit? Because you know, you look at that. It's an eclectic mix, which is really cool.

And so I really appreciate that. And I look back on our development. And as we grew Anderson Investigative Associates, so much of our initial traction came from those entities and individuals we had to count encountered throughout my career, guess what, they were very much like me, you know, in the interviewing realm, we often talk about this. When we say people like to talk to people like themselves, it's no wonder the closest group we surround ourselves with is often very homogeneous.

So it's time has passed in our business. We've worked to expand our clientele outside of that realm takes more work. So these are just to grab off of the people that know who you are and everything else. But we've expanded into, you know, dealing with the internal audit group Uber, South state bank, you know many other organizations that are outside that government realm in the realm that I dealt with for 30 years, they've pushed our comfort level and ultimately improve the quality of the product we provide.

So I want to thank you, Gresham, as I suspect, you have, again, expanded those horizons by exposing us to this large, diverse, or eclectic group of followers who have on the IMC o podcast, it's undoubtedly a privilege for us to be here. And if anybody wants to get a hold of me or speak to me, you can check us out online. The website is www.andersoninvestigative.com. Or email me at manderson@andersoninvestigated.com. You know, we're a small shop, if I'm out of town teaching or something like that, it might take me a day or two to get back to you. But I get paid to everybody that reaches out to me.

Gresham Harkless 15:56

Yes, absolutely. And I appreciate you adding to the collectiveness. I don't know if that's a word, but I just tried to use it. These podcasts and definitely having somebody you know, with your expertise, and your insight has definitely been, you know, definitely rewarding. So I appreciate your time. We'll have all those links in the show notes so that anybody can follow up with you. But I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Mark Anderson 16:14

Thank you. You too, and I appreciate this opportunity. Thank you very much.

Outro 16:19

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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