What Happens in the First 90 Seconds of an Internal Investigation Interview?
The initial 90 seconds of an internal investigation interview are crucial. Everything that happens during those first moments determines whether rapport is established, witness anxiety is reduced, expectations are set, and whether you receive quality information you can rely on. Learn how to use these few moments to establish trust and explain the process while motivating witnesses to be truthful.
The first ninety seconds of a witness interview in an internal investigation matter more than the next ninety minutes. Those seconds set the tone for the entire interview. Effective investigators know exactly how to structure that crucial time period.
One scope note before going further: witness here means someone who has relevant information about the internal investigation, not the complainant or the person accused of wrongdoing. I will address those interviews in their own posts, because they require different approaches. What follows here is geared toward the third-party witness.
What Happens in the First Ninety Seconds of a Witness Interview?
First, the witness is deciding what kind of conversation this is going to be. Is this an inquisition? Is this a sympathetic chat? Is this a trap? Is it safe to be honest or is the safest move to give the most diluted and defensible version of events? The witness makes this assessment from your posture, tone, eye contact, and countless other subconscious factors. This initial assessment will shape her perspective of the entire interview.
Second, you are conducting important diagnostic work by watching the witness’s baseline—the way the witness sits in the chair, the rate at which the witness blinks when talking about neutral subjects such as the weather, the cadence of speech when the stakes are zero. Without that baseline, the rest of the interview is guesswork.
These two pieces—the witness’s assessment of you and your assessment of the witness—happen in silence and at the same time, before the substantive questioning begins. That is why those ninety seconds matter in any internal investigation interview.
How Should an Investigator Set Up the Internal Investigation Interview Room?
Think of the interview room’s configuration as a stage and consider the message you want to send. A preferred geometric layout for most workplace investigation interviews is a small round table with two chairs at roughly ninety degrees to each other, so eye contact is available and encouraged but not mandatory. The goal is for the witness not to feel cornered.
What is on the table matters as well. If your file is open with the witness’s name on the page in red ink, you are signaling that this interview is more significant than she thought. The file should stay closed until the investigator opens it, deliberately, at a chosen point. Sometimes it stays closed for the whole interview. I keep a clean legal pad and a pen on the table. Avoid a screen (laptop or other) as it will interfere with your natural ability to connect with the witness.
How Do You Read a Witness’s Baseline?
The first minute of conversation should be about nothing of consequence (e.g., the commute, the weather, a recent holiday). You are making polite small talk at this point; but more importantly, you are listening to the witness’s baseline. Assess everything: how the witness sits, where hands are placed, the presence of fidgets, whether the witness uses filler language such as “um” or “like,” whether the witness makes eye contact when speaking. Your pen should remain on the table during this time so you can focus your attention completely.
When you begin the substantive questions, do so deliberately. There should be a clear pivot (a shift in your posture, a change in your tone, a reach for your pen) that lets the witness know the conversation has changed character. You want the witness to feel the shift without being overwhelmed or anxious. The last thing you want is for the witness to feel that you were engaging in small talk as a subterfuge.
Why Investigative Interviewing Is a Craft, not a Trick
It is in these first ninety seconds that the investigator in an internal investigation interview facilitates the conditions under which the witness wants to tell the truth. Most witnesses, in an interview about something serious, are not lying. They are managing how they will be perceived, how they will be remembered, and whether the interview will affect their job. The goal of the first ninety seconds is to make honesty the easiest of all paths. Most witnesses would rather tell the truth than not, but they first need to know that the room is one where the truth is welcome.
Before your next internal investigation interview, think about the room before the witness sees it. Spend the first minute on nothing of consequence. Watch more than you talk. When it is time for you to move on to matters of substance, do so openly. None of this is a trick. It is a craft.