I am grateful for the valuable help I received for this post from two friends: Joe Brooks, a former lieutenant for the New York City Police Department and retired special investigator for Lifespire, and Paul Cassone, former executive director of the Guild for Exceptional Children.
The third descriptive report in this series is the investigation report. Some businesses see incident reports and investigation reports as synonymous, so I will distinguish between them for this discussion:
- An incident report covers an event that may be accidental (e.g., slip, trip, or fall) or intentional (e.g., physical assault), involving human, business, or property damage, which may or may not have disciplinary or legal consequences. An incident report can be written by a wide range of employees.
- An investigation report covers an event that may be accidental (e.g., train derailment caused by human error) or intentional (e.g., train derailment caused by terrorism), or it examines conduct that may be unethical (e.g., nepotism) or illegal (e.g., embezzlement), involving human, business, or property damage, which likely will have disciplinary or legal consequences. An investigation report should be written by a highly skilled investigator.
Investigators may be concerned about the root cause of an event (e.g., an accidental train derailment or a fuel tank explosion), or they may have zero interest in cause (e.g., embezzlement or sexual harassment). I will look at root-cause reports later in this series.
All told, investigators have quite a challenging job. Needless to say, they need good writing skills, but the best of them possess these seven qualities:
Perceptiveness. Investigators need to be experts in human behavior. They must know the right questions and the right amount of questions without coming up empty or overstepping their bounds. They have to know when an answer to their question is taking them down a dead end, whether purposefully or not. They also have to relentlessly pursue a path they believe will give them the answers they seek.
Patience. As good students of human nature, investigators must understand that interviewees possess contrasting communication abilities. Realizing miscommunication equals mischaracterization, investigators may need to restate questions to accommodate interviewees. Some interviewees may be naturally nervous under questioning. Some may be worried about repercussions of their truthful testimony. Some may be under extraordinary stress because of what they experienced. In any case, investigators must devote the needed time to allow the interviewee to express themselves as best they can.
Restraint. Investigators walk a fine line in collecting facts that lead to the truth without necessarily asserting what is or what is not true. As Lieutenant Joe Brooks says, "Investigators are not the ones to drop the guillotine." This challenge is a critical one for investigators to meet; otherwise, the investigation will be perceived as biased.
Objectivity. It would be a fatal mistake to enter an investigation with preconceived ideas about the subjects. This challenge amplifies when investigators have a relationship with a party to a case. "Assume nothing," says Lieutenant Brooks. "Don't even think about what you think." For this reason, investigators also need to know when to recuse themselves from an investigation.
Fairness. "The more you dig in an investigation, the deeper it goes," says Paul Cassone. "It can go on for a long time." This is why investigators need to know when questions are still relevant or when they are going off course. For instance, if you were an investigator of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of April 20, 2010, asking questions about the environmental conditions, equipment, materials, processes, workers, management, and even regulators would be fair game. But asking questions about legislation regulating the oil industry may be too far from the root cause because all area oil wells were operating without a serious incident under the same regulations up until the date of the explosion.
Accuracy. The precision of the report language is essential. I am a strong believer in reporting verbatim, no matter how vulgar, abusive, or insensitive the statements are. The investigators are not the ones to judge whether language is appropriate for reporting purposes. Tell it like it was told.
Wisdom. A knowledge of policies and regulations alone won't do; investigators also must know what to do when a law is broken. As Lieutenant Brooks puts it, "If you're at a point when you believe a crime has been committed, you have to immediately refer the case to law enforcement authorities."
In my years of teaching investigation report writing, I have found numerous situations when investigative reports were unintentionally biased. Remember that words are nuanced, so edit carefully.
