We offer two training services:
Accounting Shenanigans Workshops
Our Accounting Shenanigans workshops are a 2 x two-hour series.
These are practical workshops that provide worked examples of accounting fudges that we have observed on the ASX 300 and is in effect a “how to” guide to spot these tricks.
First session:
Cash flow fudges: Factoring, payment plans, classifications of cash flow, acquisitions, round-tripping cash, gross v net cashflow.
Revenue recognition: Reality v policy.
Acquisition accounting: Business combinations are a black box with potential to impact all three financial statements over a number of years.
Second session:
Making the P&L numbers – near balance date transactions, significant items, hollow logs, capitalised expenses.
Balance sheet indicators – Receivables, revenue recognition, debt that is not debt.
Accounting standards and metrics – AASB9, AASB15, AASB16. These changes led to a lot of noise which can be used to improve metrics like EBITDA.
Conversation matters: behavioural analysis and interviewing skills for professionals
About
This course teaches participants observational, analytical and strategic interviewing skills that simultaneously optimise information gathering and deception detection before, during and after important professional interactions. Evidence from interviewing and lie detection research is incorporated into five modules with incremental focus on specialised cognitive and verbal skills. Evidence-based investigative interviewing principles and practices; content analysis; individual cognitive risk factors, culminate in specific cognitive verbal lie detection strategies.
Course rationale
Many of us have experienced unproductive professional interactions that have wasted our time and energy – where we have learned very little or nothing of value. Perhaps we felt like a spectator at a performance more than a participant engaged in a real conversation. Cognitive and verbal avoidance can feel impenetrable. Breaking through skilful conversational performance barriers; understanding how to assess true behavioural motivations; disentangle logical coherence; formulate individualised cognitive approaches and “reality test” potentially deceptive information will provide participants opportunities to feel more capable, confident and pro-active in what might otherwise be passive or unproductive interactions.
Generic skills in behavioural analysis and interviewing will require gradual implementation into your work context and to your specific professional context and role. We recommend consulting and helping your colleagues in developing these techniques over time.
A fundamental theme throughout the course is the cumulative focus of evidenced-based cognitive and verbal dynamics in productive conversations. Many intelligent and articulate interviewees are supremely skilled in having unproductive conversations – this tendency can even lead to overt frustration for all involved but a calm, low-status, patient, curious approach is always desirable.
Course Structure
- Module 1 aims to help you address conversational disengagement strategies performative or evasive interviewees present with. By deconstructing the conversation dynamics in real time and inviting a more cooperative interaction you will improve a) your professional relationship, b) the quality and quantity of information you’re seeking, and c) significantly improve the “cognitive currency” and therefore your deception detection capacity.
- Module 2 begins where module one leaves off – by delving further into conversation motivation, approach and avoidance. More specifically, adapted aspects of the psychology of motivational interviewing (by William Miller) and behaviour change categorisation (by Prochaska and DiClement) are provided, so you can quickly assess how motivated an interview is about whatever topic you addressing and perhaps their own propensity for behaviour change (where applicable). Many deceptive interviewees prefer to say as little as possible about contentious issues – motivational interviewing significantly improves your ability to elicit good information and, conversely, makes “lying by omission” difficult by respectfully enquiring about underlying reasons for behavioural priorities and decisions. Importantly, some interviewees (and organisations) indulge in performative motivation by way of claiming they are more and morally motivated to solve serious problems than their behaviour indicates – this motivational discrepancy between explicit and implicit motivation is important to understand for subsequent deception detection, but also how and where to target your efforts.
- Module 3 some interviewees lack logical coherence; express vague or circular reasoning, or provide superficial reasoning for substantial topics. Their reasoning and content will reveal more than you might expect upon closer inspection. Various psychological, written and verbal tendencies are strongly and predictively associated with behavioural outcomes.
- Module 4 describes the seemingly innate self and relational biases we humans are prone to – particularly when these biases are amplified by status, power, wealth, fame and success. Healthy narcissism can become unhealthy easily and quickly enough in the absence of frank and fearless feedback. Relatedly all have individual biases which effect both interviewer and interviewee perceptual accuracy. There are particular cognitive blind spots (and strengths) that are very helpful to know if interviewing or observing a particular individual.
- Module 5 is the destination of all prior course learning points integrated into an applied framework for interview planning – including specific cognitive verbal lie detection methods if possible. By increasing cooperative engagement; motivational clarity, logical coherence and minimizing cognitive avoidance, the imposition of high cognitive load questioning can be optimised for the purposes of dynamic lie detection.
Course aims
CM aims to provide you with an evidence-based skills framework for you to improve information gathering, assess individual credibility; content plausibility and veracity without unnecessary damage to your professional relationships.
Course approach
• We often illustrate with extreme cases for clearer demonstration of learning points
• We take a non-confrontational, disarming and respectful approach to interviewing
• We adopt a scientific, evidence-based, apolitical, non-pathologising and non-judgmental approach
• We use public domain information only (and perhaps OSINT)
• We are flexible & open to suggestion – and don’t mind being interrupted, as we prefer to be interactive
WE PROVIDE SERVICES THAT HELP OWNERS
Promote an intelligent, evidence-based public debate on governance issues.
Use shareholder rights to their advantage at company meetings.
Monitor, defend and advance their ownership rights throughout capital markets.
Identify governance risk in the companies they hold.
We offer two training services: Accounting Shenanigans Workshops and Interview Skills.