5 soft skills that all investigators should have

Empathy

In the world of investigations and intelligence analysis, few skills are as powerful as empathy. Empathy is an essential skill as, naturally, the subjects of an investigation will have different motives and backgrounds to the investigators. Well-developed empathy allows investigators to understand a subject’s actions and intentions on a deeper level, providing valuable insight.

For example, a counter-terrorism officer will very likely have a very different worldview, ideology, and background to the cell members they are investigating. While intellectual and academic study into terrorists’ cultures and ideologies may give some insight into their actions, being able to empathize with them can give the officer a higher level of understanding. Of course, there is also an important distinction to be made between empathy and sympathy. Investigators should not attempt to justify or agree with the motives of the subjects, but rather use empathy to understand the emotions that drive them. 

Autodidacticism

Gone are the days when people could comfortably stick to their area of specialization and investigate a narrow field in great detail. Investigations are becoming more global, and criminal arsenals more diverse. As a result, good investigators must be able to develop strong self-teaching skills and be prepared to dive head first into new fields to understand certain aspects of their investigation.  

For example, a fraud analyst may need to learn about the way a certain new social media trend works in order to understand the typology of a rising threat actor. With criminals appropriating new tools for their schemes, departments can’t afford to wait for specialists to arrive. And for many emerging threats, there may not even be any relevant specialists.

It should be noted that true autodidacticism does not mean that one should never ask others for advice or guidance. Therefore, self-teaching should always be grounded in humility and the ability to reach out for advice to others with more experience. Sometimes the advice will not be to teach a new skill but to simply validate one’s understanding of a new field of knowledge before implementing it into an investigation. 

Critical thinking

Critical thinking is  commonly mentioned in the context of investigations, but it is very rarely defined accurately. In practice, critical thinking for investigators can be thought of as having the ability to play mental chess against oneself. In other words, throughout every step of an investigation, the investigator should be able to play the devil’s advocate and suggest mitigating explanations for a subject’s actions and motives, and other routes a subject might take. Crucially, the investigator should then be able to respond with a counter-explanation, playing out a logical battle until the better argument wins. 

In this way, critical thinking serves as a strong antidote to many forms of bias. Additionally, it helps investigators prepare for any questions and challenges raised by other members of the investigative team and/or management. 

As an example, let’s assume that a subject of a human trafficking investigation has incorporated a new limited liability company (LLC) in a third-world country. While the investigative instinct may be to tie this activity to human trafficking operations, a good investigator will try to find reasonable explanations that would show that the LLC is not tied to human trafficking. All the while, the investigator should also be looking for strong clues that the LLC is, in fact, tied to human trafficking. Using this strategy ensures that each side is played out against the other which, in theory, will help the investigator arrive at a more solid, fact-based, and logical conclusion.

Presentation skills

While presentation skills are comprised of multiple soft skills, the ability to present information in a clear, succinct, and digestible manner is a foundational skill for investigators. Communicating the facts, and how they were uncovered, to management, other teams, and in some cases, to regulators or courts, can make the difference between an investigation making a real impact or going nowhere. 

The use of visualization tools is also a soft skill in itself, and an important part of modern presentations. Composing and using visual aids such as link charts, slide decks, and so on could be described as somewhere between an art and a science. But with experience, it is a skill that can greatly enhance an analyst’s ability to transfer ideas to management and/or other teams.

This is especially true for investigations that involve very technical fields. For example, a cyber intelligence team trying to convince other teams of a complex potential threat must be able to explain the threat in layman’s terms. Visual aids can take complex, abstract ideas and make them easier to understand, especially for anybody inexperienced in a given field.

Writing skills

Much like with presentation skills, the ability to transfer knowledge is as important as the knowledge itself. In fact, well-written, concise briefs and reports are often the best ways to disseminate information to other stakeholders. Unfortunately, many now view writing skills as a dying art. 

The problem often stems from a lack of experience. Now more than ever, people come to investigative fields from backgrounds that involve either no writing (such as accounting or information security) or too much writing (such as academia and think tanks). But writing a good investigative brief is a distinct skill that requires practice.  Therefore, convincing the former-academic or accountant to be more succinct will rarely be enough. Instead, they must develop a new skill — intelligence writing. 

As with presentation skills, this is even more important for investigations in technical fields. For example, law enforcement professionals are less likely to follow up on a suspicious activity report (SAR) filed by a bank if is riddled with technical, unfamiliar banking terminology. In essence, strong writing skills can bring down technical barriers between teams, lubricate communications, and encourage better collaboration.

Difficult to define, but indispensable

In conclusion, the five core skills of empathy, self-teaching, critical thinking, presentation, and writing skills, are all essential soft skills for good investigators.

While the concepts may be unfamiliar to some, these skills can, and should, be developed by investigators and analysts wherever possible. There are no quantifiable milestones for some — particularly empathy or critical thinking — but they are, nevertheless, crucial skills. Therefore, prioritizing these concepts and incorporating them into employee screening and training can yield significant benefits for investigative teams.