My fourth ‘People Who Read People’ podcast episode is an interview with David Zulawski, an expert in interrogation and interview techniques. Zulawski is the cofounder of Wicklander Zulawski and Associates, a company that consults and trains people on interrogation and interviewing. Before starting that business in 1982, he worked in several law enforcement and investigative positions; he’s been a licensed polygraph examiner, a licensed private investigator, and a certified fraud examiner.
Links to the show on different platforms (some stuff we talked about is below that):
Zulawski and Wicklander wrote a book on interrogation techniques that is very respected in the law enforcement and private loss prevention industries: Practical Aspects of Interview and Interrogation. Here’s the Amazon link for that book. Before interviewing David, I read that book, and I highly recommend it. There are a lot of great concepts that I think would apply to all people-focused endeavors, including management and negotiation.
Some things we talk about in this podcast:
- Why is the non-confrontation, rapport-focused interrogation technique W-Z recommends the best approach?
- Why is it important to downplay the significance of the crime or incident? What are some approaches for doing that?
- Why is it important to try to prevent a suspect from making denials? Why does having a suspect make denials make an interrogator’s job more difficult?
- Why is it important to not tell a suspect all the evidence you have against them?
- What are some behavioral clues a suspect is lying or telling the truth?
- What are some crossovers from interrogation behavioral patterns to poker tells?
- How does the non-confrontational approach help prevent false confessions?
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