Shakespeare Enhances & Shortens the Learning Process

 

Consider the following request that I received from the field: 

 

"My position now requires that I become a much more skilled interviewer than in the past. I am not having much success in remembering related terms, reading people, identifying with them, understanding their motives, relating to them or gaining cooperation. Help!" 

 

A close reading of this appeal indicates that this person wants a significant number of necessary and related interviewing micro-skills. She wants to remember interviewing terms. She also wants to be able to read and identify with people, understand their motives, relate to them, and gain their cooperation. 

 

Let's see if we can break these goals down a bit and help this interviewer. First, don't fixate on interviewing terms right now. Terms are important, but trying to grasp several concepts and memorize them in a short amount of time can be a bit daunting. In working with thousands of interviewers -- advanced, intermediate, and novice -- I've found that linking what they need to know with what they already know creates many "Oh yeah!" moments. Then I see faces light up in "I know this" epiphanies. (The Encarta English Dictionary defines epiphany as a "sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.") Then attaching the related term to those things they already know becomes a natural part of the learning experience instead of a strenuous mental undertaking. 

 

In my classes, I use examples from literary classics to bridge the gap between the participants' knowledge and what they need to know. For instance, Charles Dickens in his works gives us wonderful characterizations and overt human actions. Those characterizations provide the observable human actions. From those behaviors the interviewer can discern what others do. That discernment is helpful but it's not enough. William Shakespeare's writings show psychological insights and windows into the depth of personal motivations and actions, which we can quickly incorporate into the overall interviewing performance. 

 

I can "see" the characters and circumstances of Shakespeare's writings in those who sit across from me in interviews. My study of Shakespeare has provided me with a protocol to "take a snapshot" of the interviewee's motivations, actions, and reactions: greed, lust, jealousy, ambition, revenge, temptation, loyalty, and mental incapacity. 

 

Hamlet, Othello, Desdemona, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Antony, and Iago -- just to name a few -- all provide psychological perceptions into the human psyche and dynamic. For example, an interviewer often must become someone that he isn't. He must feign understanding for actions that are totally opposite of those of his own moral compass. 

 

No one disguised the portrayal of himself better than Hamlet. As he prepares to reveal his mother's new husband as the murderer of his father, he speaks to his associates: 

 

"Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,

How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,

As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic disposition on,

That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,

With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake,

Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,

As "Well, well, we know"; or "We could, an if we would";

Or "If we list to speak"; or "There be, an if they might";

Or such ambiguous giving out, to note

That you know aught of me: this is not to do,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you." 

 

In the above passage, Hamlet is explaining to his compatriots that he's going to appear to be someone other than who he really is. He's asking that they take no notice of his outward changes and actions or make an issue of it. A simple, practical example for us would be two interviewers who plan to take a "good guy -- bad guy" approach during an interview. 

 

Also, I often think of Hamlet when I need to convey to the interviewee that I understood completely the difficulty of his circumstances and how he's been unfairly treated. 

 

Another excellent character study is Iago, the aide-de-camp to Othello in Shakespeare's play of the same name. Study the questions he asked Othello that led Othello to believe his wife was unfaithful. For example, Iago asks Othello: 

 

"Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady, 

Know of your love?" 

 

He also asks, 

 

"Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief

Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?" 

 

These two questions activate Othello's cognition and direct him to the conclusion that his wife is unfaithful. 

 

Iago, speaking to himself (one of Shakespeare's devices that allow us to "go into the character") says, 

 

"In double knavery -- How, how? Let's see." 

 

He has two goals -- to destroy Othello and Cassio -- and play both ends into the middle. And I've often seen Iago's "double knavery," precipitated by his hatred and jealousy in many of those I've interviewed. Guilty persons, just like Iago, will be revealed for who they really are if the interviewer is patient and skillful. 

 

"Othello's Error" is a psychological phenomenon that says if someone is telling the truth and he perceives the interviewer isn't believing him, he will display many of the same non-verbal manifestations of deception as someone who is guilty or has knowledge of a crime. Non-verbal indicators include but aren't limited to body shifting, touching of self and preening, and crossing and uncrossing the legs as well as the arms. Like Othello, it's important for the interviewer to keep an open mind, to be able to determine when someone is being truthful, and remember that judgment prior to inquiry can prove to be fatal. 

 

Lastly, Shakespeare's character, Mark Antony, from "Julius Caesar," can show us that the interviewer needs to be able to influence the actions of others. The question is, "How was he able to convince the crowd in one manner by seemingly saying the exact opposite?" In his famous speech, Antony, says: 

 

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--

For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men--

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me" 

 

In the March/April column, I'll examine the exact linguistic "sleight-of-mouth" techniques Antony used in his speech and explore how we can use those during an during an interview. 

 

Until next time, keep asking. 

 

Don Rabon is retired from the deputy directorship of the Western Campus of the North Carolina Justice Academy in the North Carolina Department of Justice. He continues as an ACFE faculty member and an author on interviewing topics.  

 

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