As an investigator, you don’t define your value to the organization; leadership does. What are you doing to be a better business advisor and contribute to the organization’s goals? In other words, why should the bosses listen to you? Because misconduct doesn’t happen in a vacuum! It results from a perfect storm of factors like employee ignorance, a failure to see the larger implications, a lack of training and procedures, or a failure of internal controls. And you have a view to all of this in your cases. This webinar outlines how you can become a better strategic advisor, how to think like a business leader, and what keeps executives awake at night. You’ll learn how case management can drive a culture of prevention, and how you can prove the bottom-line ROI of investigations. Join Meric Bloch, Strategic Advisor at Winter Investigations as he discusses how investigators can become business advisors to the C-suite using their knowledge of case management and risk assessment. In this webinar, you will learn: Goals of a strategic business advisor. -What advice does a strategic advisor give? -What should a strategic advisor not do? -How an investigator can become a strategic advisor. -How stellar case management positions investigators as strategic advisors.

1. L e a d e r s h i p S t r a t e g i e s f o r I n v e s t i g a t o r s
Why Should the Managers Listen?
Meric Craig Bloch
Strategic Advisor, Designer, and Trainer
Winter Investigations
WinterInvestigations
Global Advisory

2. Good Advice Needs a Good Investigation
• A good-faith inquiry that reaches a rational conclusion.
• Thorough interviewing of the Reporter, the Subject
employee, and witnesses with relevant information.
• Consideration of the relevant issues and standards involved.
• Gathering and analysis of the evidence.
• Assessment of the credibility of the investigation participants
and the strength of the evidence.
• A rational, legally defensible conclusions.
• Identifying contributing factors and areas for business
improvement.

3. Good Advice Needs Good Tools
• A workplace investigations policy
• Report intake and triage SOP, including an escalation criteria
• Case-management system
• Protocol for conducting investigations
• Templates for consistent investigation tasks
• Investigator training program (initial and continuing
development)
• Analytics to show investigation progress and trends

4. Poll Question
How are you currently viewed by your leaders?
a. A trusted advisor
b. A role that is not relevant to business operations
c. Someone to whom we listen politely but not much
more
d. Be seen and not heard

5. Can You Handle the Truth?
• Why do you want to be heard by your managers?
• Why should the managers listen to you about anything? What’s in
it for them?
• What’s not working now? Why?
• Are you ready to be brutally honest with yourself?
• Can you train yourself on what really matters?
• How willing are you to change yourself to have more influence?

6. Why Most Strategies Fail
• They are not really part of the company’s strategic interest.
• Management can’t support them.
• They are developed without input from the decision-makers
• They usurp the legitimate territory of others
• They avoid dealing with the truly tough stuff
• Compliance and investigations are rarely the first concerns of
management.

7. What Do Managers Want?
• They want advance warning of problems.
• They want options for solving, or at least managing, problems.
• They want someone who can forecast patterns of events and
problems.
• They want you to offer value beyond what the managers already
know.
• They want well-timed, truly significant insights.

8. The Investigator as a Strategic Advisor
• You must have a management mindset
• You must understand business activities, future strategies,
and the company’s processes
• You must be a relationship builder and seek out other voices.
• You must extract key insights that will move the business
into the future.
• Your most-useful advice is practical, pragmatic, purposeful,
focused, and fair.

9. Achieving Maximum Impact
• View your world from a management perspective rather than as a
staff function.
• Focus on the problems and challenges at hand rather than their
criticisms.
• Develop the discipline to structure your presentations.
• Avoid assigning blame for the current situation.
• Avoid complaining about past failures to adopt preventive
measures.

10. What Managers Need from Investigators
• An investigator who integrates their work with the organization.
• An investigator who can generate ideas.
• An investigator who is willing to collaborate and lead initiatives.
• An investigator who will share their knowledge to develop others.
• An investigator who stays current on legal and investigative
developments.
• An investigator who can drive their own growth.

11. An Investigator Must Be Trustworthy
• Adequate knowledge is easy. The challenge is building the trust
component.
• Trust may simply be a manager’s absence of fear. You replaced
fear with confidence, credibility, and competence.
• You may develop trust with managers, but you have to manage
the internal politics that comes from people who have influence
and access to managers.
• Trust and influence creates the perception of loyalty. But an
investigator should not have blind loyalty. Instead, show loyalty to
managers by higher levels of objectivity and perspective.

12. The Ingredients of Trust
• Candor
• Credibility
• Competence
• Integrity
• Loyalty
• It’s not face time. Proximity to power is a false indicator. Actions
count.

13. The Investigator’s Verbal Toolbox
• Facts
• Stories
• Questions
• Comparisons
• Recommendations and options
• Constructive confrontation
• Staff advisors, however, tend to be:
• Peacemakers
• Consensus builders
• Direction seekers
• Momentum generators

14. The Verbal Visionary Investigator
• The trusted advisor is a partner in the visualization of an
organization’s destiny.
• A visionary is an optimistic investigator who can get others to
focus on meaningful, useful, positive goals.
• The verbal visionary investigator is able to:
• Analyze effectively
• Forecast pragmatically
• Focus realistically on issues and problems
• Candidly interpret events and ideas and their impact
• Generate ethically and morally appropriate options

15. So, What Does an Investigator Do?
• An investigator should act as a truth coach and avoid the trap of
believing in narrow truths that serve no one.
• Truth requires understanding and interpretation.
• Truth requires recognition of the viewer’s points of reference.
• A verbal visionary is usually (very) candid.
• Candor is truth with an attitude.

16. How Will You Know if it Works?
• Do you act and speak in other people’s best interests?
• Are you a mentor? Can you be outcome focused?
• Are you quoted by those whom you respect and those who seek
your help?
• Do people take action based on what you say?
• Can you describe your sense of destiny, your principles, your
limits, and your virtues?
• Can you systematically go after the truth first? Are you a
pragmatist?

17. Closing Thoughts
• Investigations are a form of business intelligence.
• Your value is determined internally, not by external benchmarks.
• You may not always win, but you must try.
• Do the right thing, even if it is not convenient.
• Everything you believe in is true.

18. T h a n k Y o u f o r
P a r t i c i p a t i n g
Find more free webinars:
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sight.com/resources/webinars
@isightsoftware
C o n t a c t
M e r i c C r a i g B l o c h
C o n t a c t
i - S i g h t
webinars@i-sight.com
meric@winterinvestigations.org
www.linkedin.com/in/mericbloch/
@Investig8rWintr
WinterInvestigations
Global Advisory