Master trainer in ‘Deception Detection’ to address ERM2016

Organisational psychologist and master trainer in ‘Deception Detection Skills’, Alan Hudson, will present strategies for better enterprise risk management (ERM), alongside a host of decorated speakers at the ERM Seminar in Sydney on 20 September.

Now in its eighth year, the 2016 ERM Seminar (Tuesday 20 September) will focus on practical risk management. Speakers will address the important roles risk managers perform in organisations and use case studies to explore new approaches to risk management that are especially applicable to actuarial roles.

Plenary 3 speaker Alan Hudson has a qualification you don’t come across every day.  The Principal of AH Business Psychology is a fully accredited master trainer in the Paul Ekman International science-based training programs in Deception Detection Skills.  The rigorous program teaches how to detect credibility and truthfulness using assessment of a person’s demeanour across five channels: facial expressions, body language, vocal tone, verbal style, and content.

“People’s ability to tell truth and lies untrained is about 54% – almost the toss of a coin,” says Alan.

“This training is particularly useful for specialists whose job it is to assess and elicit information, whether that’s through interviews, audits, recruiting, forensic or security scenarios.”alan-hudson

Think you’ve got a good poker face? Alan challenges you to think again.

The training teaches one to ascertain a person’s “baseline” regular/relaxed facial expression and then analyse their expressions of “initial involuntary emotional response” of one of seven emotions (surprise, fear, anger, sadness, happiness, disgust, and contempt). According to Alan, these expressions are universal; and transcend race, gender, cultural background or age.

“You can tell reliably if a person’s feeling one of these emotions…they show the same expressions in the direction of the eyes, the forehead, the set of the mouth,” he says.  “Once you’ve identified this emotion, the skill then is to probe with well-crafted questions.”  Reading and influencing people is clearly a professional skill enhancing tool that comes in handy when conducting meetings and negotiations, as well as advancing projects and leadership roles.  As Alan says, “even the smallest insight can mean a huge difference to negotiation outcomes”.  “Internal fraud goes up each year, and for social security fraud, in 2012 the official Government figure was $700 million a year, which suggests current figures are just under a billion dollars a year.”

ERM2016 will open with a keynote presentation by David Murray, Chair of the Financial System Inquiry, who also launched the Institute’s White Paper “For Richer, For Poorer – Retirement Incomes” in September last year.

Then, a full day of presentations will see attendees take home key learnings in the following areas:

  • Key Macro Risks
  • Identifying Emerging Risks
  • Influencing and Reading People
  • Risk Culture, Conduct Risk & Reputation
  • Case Studies – Risk Management in Practice
  • The Role of CRO

Find out more and register.

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