The Security Circle

EP 124 From Guantanamo to the Boardroom: Lena Sisco the no. 11 Body Language Expert: Building Trust During Interrogation, Not Fear

• Yoyo Hamblen • Season 1 • Episode 124

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🎙️ Podcast Summary:

In this compelling episode, Yolanda sits down with Lena Sisco — former Department of Defense interrogator, bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and body language expert. Lena shares her extraordinary and unexpected journey from archaeology to military intelligence, revealing the mental and emotional endurance it takes to interrogate high-value detainees, including at Guantanamo Bay. She discusses her development of a rapport-based interrogation method, the power of empathy and listening, and her experiences training law enforcement and corporate leaders in communication and human behavior.

🔥 Top Juicy Subjects Covered:

  • Becoming an Interrogator: Initially hesitant, Lena was recruited into one of the first IPW (Interrogation of Prisoners of War) programs allowing women.
  • Training Breakdown: Describes grueling military training meant to strip ego and rebuild resilience and open-mindedness.
  • Gitmo Deployment: Shares raw insights from her first real-world assignment at Guantanamo Bay, including sensory overload, nerves, and how she learned on the job.
  • Empathy vs. Aggression: Advocates for building trust over fear, even in high-stakes scenarios, challenging old-school macho interrogation styles.
  • Strategic Listening: Talks about how real listening uncovers both information and motivation, critical to interrogation and everyday communication.
  • The Birth of Her Method: After rejecting traditional aggressive techniques, Lena created a rapport-based system that has since trained law enforcement and businesses.
  • TV Series "Killer Performance": Behind-the-scenes look at analyzing real serial killers’ behavior on a true-crime TV series.
  • Her Favorite Interrogation Win: Tells a powerful story about a detainee named Abdulaziz who turned informant simply because Lena was “too nice to lie to.”
  • New Books in the Works: Lena is working on two more books, including one on dark psychology aimed at helping everyday people navigate manipulation.

Biography

Lena Sisco is the CEO and Founder of two companies, The Congruency Group and Sector Intelligence. She is a former Naval Intelligence Officer and Marine Corps-certified interrogator who conducted hundreds of interrogations during the Global War on Terror.

Lena Sisco is an expert in body language (voted top 11th in the world by GlobalGurus), communication techniques, lie detection, and leadership. She was voted the top #11 body language expert worldwide and has appeared on multiple news outlets, such as FoxLiveNow, Newsmax, and CourtTV. She has been an expert witness on the HBO Series “Burden of Proof,” Reelz Series, “Killer Performance,” and an Emmy-nominated court TV show. She is a TEDx speaker, a keynote speaker, and an expert panelist for SPYEX and the SPY Museum in Washington, D.C.

Since 2003, Lena has trained the Department of Defense, government agencies, law enforcement, special forces, and private sector industries in body language, interviewing, statement analysis, detecting deception, elicitation, executive presence, and change leadership.

Lena is certified in Organizational Change Management and received her certificate in the Psychology of Leadership from Cornell University. She has a Master's degree in archaeology from Brown University and a bachelor's degree in Anthropology from the University of Rhode Island. She is the author of “You’re Lying,” “Honest Answers,” and “The 13 Power Moves of Dark Psychology.” You can reach her at lenasisco@thecongruencygroup.com or at +1 703.898.6364. Her websites are: www.thecongruencygroup.com and www.sectorintell.com.

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

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Yoyo:

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle Podcast. Ifpo is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and we are dedicated at ifpo to providing meaningful education. Information and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference where we can to our members' mental health and wellbeing. Our listeners are global. They are the decision makers of today and tomorrow, and I wanna thank you wherever you are for being a part of the Security Circle journey. If you love the podcast, we are on. All podcast platforms and don't forget to subscribe or even better just like and comment or comment and share the LinkedIn post. So thank you for your company Today I have with me what is going to soon turn out to be a very special lady. She's the number one at the moment, body language expert in the world. She's a keynote speaker. She's a, she's what? We've got author, she's done a TEDx. She's on, she's an entrepreneur. Uh, she's a writer. She's former Department of Defense, interrogator and Intel officer. But guess who's gonna do the interrogating now? Welcome to the Security Circle podcast, Lena Cisco, how you doing?

Lena:

Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be here. And you know what? It's gonna be nice to be on the other side. I welcome being interrogated.

Yoyo:

Well. Let's speak how far we can go with this.

Lena:

Okay.

Yoyo:

you came to me via, our good friend Gavin Stone. Yes.

Lena:

And,

Yoyo:

and that's because you, you probably share a bit of a background together. Certainly you share a, a skillset. But I don't think he joined the military on a dare. But you did tell us how that happened.'cause it was the beginning of your journey, wasn't it?

Lena:

It really was. It was completely unplanned. I never thought about it. I had no desire to ever do it. If you would've asked me back then, Hey, do you picture yourself joining the military? I would've said, you are absolutely nuts. I was an archeologist. I was an academic. That's what I was gonna do. That was my life, and I did it. I became that and I loved it. But while I was digging overseas in beautiful places, I was like, you know, it's not that exciting. I thought it would be more adventurous, like Indiana Jones. and long story short, I got my master's degree. I didn't have a job. And so one of my friends just in who I grew up with, he said, I just joined the military. I joined intelligence. It's really cool. He is like, why don't you join? They'll pay you. And I was like, Ooh, that's enticing.'cause I do need money right now. Um, and he's like, listen. If you didn't make it as, you know, Indiana Jones, you can make it as James Bond. And I thought, oh, that's cool. I'm like, all right. He's like, come on, come on. Just join and dare you. And I'm like, I'll do it six years. Who cares? And so I joined

Yoyo:

Tomb Radar. I was thinking. Yes.

Lena:

Right, right. Yes.

Yoyo:

And it's not James Bond, it's Jane Bond.

Lena:

There you go. There you go. Well, listen, so my husband, right, his last name is Smith, and he is like a real world James Bond. So they call us Mr. And Mrs. Smith. One day we're gonna do a podcast or a show, or write a book or something.

Yoyo:

Tell us what your first day in the military was like. I mean, did you have your heartbroken in sense of what you were gonna need to commit to? I.

Lena:

No. in fact I walked away going, oh, that's it. It's kind of easy. I joined, it was called Basic Reserve Intelligence Training. Brit, I didn't have a uniform. They didn't come in yet. It was in Massachusetts. I forget exactly where. Um, but it was the Massachusetts, it was a reserve weekend'cause I was a reservist. So I was the weekend warrior. went, showed up on a Saturday morning. Did the whole day and they were doing a sub module. And so the instructor had a little review and then he put everyone through a test and he's like, well, Siemens, Cisco, do you wanna take the test? I'm like, yeah, can I take it? And he is like, yeah, but you didn't learn it. I'm like, I wanna take it anyway. And I like got, I don't know, 98 or something on it. He's like, how did you do that? He's like, well, you passed, so just jump on in. Um, so a year long course was like a 10, 10 month course for me. And I found it very interesting because it was so 180 from what I've ever done in my entire life. Like I'm learning about submarines and ships and armament and missile systems. I'm like, what? But I was like, what's kind of cool? And I had a good memory. So yeah, I just, you know, passed it. And then I got stationed in Newport, Rhode Island at the War College.'cause I lived in Rhode Island and that's, um. I thought we were gonna do, like, you know, the war gaming of the eighties. That was so cool. I thought, oh, I'm gonna start doing war gaming because I was doing country studies and they did war gaming there, but it wasn't that cool. Uh, and then it was just happened to be one weekend, uh, maybe a year and a half into it. I was approached by commander, who I'm still friendly with today, always talked to him. I constantly, uh, on Facebook, will send him a thank you. He approached me, he said, Hey, semen, Cisco, we have a brand new opportunity and we just think that you would be perfect with your personality and whatever, whatever your background. And it's called IPW. And I was like, oh, what does that stand for? He said, interrogation, prisoners of war. And I was like. Ah. I'm like, uh, okay. He's like, well, we just think you would be a great fit. It's the first time the Marines are allowing, number one, your lowly rank to join the training, and number two females. And so that kind of enticed me. I'm like, oh yeah, I can do anything a man could do. I mean within limits. Uh, but I said, all right. And then he said, well, this afternoon the marine contingent is coming to talk to all of us. So we're gonna hear what IP W's all about. And after that talk, I was like, oh, sir, no thank you. I'm like, this is not for me. Uh, I am not living in a tent, in a war torn country with bombs going over my head, uh, without showers and interrogating, you know, not just, not me. But thank you. He's like, are you sure? And I went home that night and I said, you know, what the heck? You know, what do I got to lose? I'll say, yes. He, he sees something in me. I don't know what it is, but I'm like, well, whatever. I'll give it a go. I joined the military kind of on a whatever, so I was like, I'll do this, whatever. If I fail out, I fail out. I don't care. You know, I got nothing to lose. It's not gonna damage me. So Sunday morning I went back, I'm like, Hey, commander. I says, sign me up. I'll do this training thing. He's like, are you sure? He's like. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just sign me up. I'll, I'll do it. And oh my gosh, I had no idea what I signed up for. It was a year long grueling training, the best training I've ever been through because you know, it may sound cliche, but they really break you down to build you back up

Yoyo:

what's being broken down like?

Lena:

Um, just being stripped, being vulnerable, being able to say, I suck. Like I can't do this. I don't know how to do this. What do I do next? And then when you get to that point, you're ready to learn and they swoop in and then you are open, you are practicing. There's no judgments, there's no bi, there's no, um. There's no like veil, you know, no communication barrier. So at that point you're just a sponge and you're soaking it all in. And because you have no ego, there's no ego at that point, your ego is stripped. Um, and I just think that's the best way to get vulnerable and to learn something, is to really say, okay, I'm ready. I don't know it all. I can't do it all. Help me. And when you get to that point, I just think that's when the learning really begins.

Yoyo:

I think you've made a very good point there.'cause I think ego gets in the way of a lot of people being able to be open to learning

Lena:

Oh, it sure does. It sure does.

Yoyo:

I wonder why they feel, I mean, that they must identify that that ego's gotta go. And I guess if we're gonna be very stereotypical here, there is a lot of machoism in the military and certainly here in the army, you know, and I'm thinking maybe that's. Why they have to break it down. Because Machoism is also, a blocker to learning and developing,

Lena:

I think. Yeah. So I can see it as like this duality, right, for learning and getting really good in your expertise and being able to follow orders and all of that ego has to go, but when you get into an environment where you need to, it's um. Hostile environment. It's a lot of fear. You're in a war, uh, fighting for your life, you know, in that crazy environment. I think your ego can actually do you good and help you get through it and help you, um, do whatever it is that you're doing instead of being crumbled and not being able to mentally handle it. So I think ego in that point can actually help you mentally prepare for any challenge.

Yoyo:

So it can become a tool then that you use the toolbox. Yeah. So they prepped you then for a field assignment. At what point did you think, oh my God, this shit's getting real, man.

Lena:

Well, I was like, Hey, after a year training, I was like, this is the coolest stuff ever. I wanna use it. And that was 1999, you know, before nine 11. Wow. And, you know, 99, 2000, I'm like, I'm never gonna use this stuff. I'm never gonna deploy. And we would do like mock, um, weekends where we would set up like, uh, camps and interrogate and all this stuff. So we were pretend, you know, we're doing it, but it's all training environment. And then I got commissioned as an officer and I was in my knife and fork school, they call him. Two week schools for reservists, not the full month. Um, and I was, I'll never ever forget this. I was in Miss Y's etiquette class, learning how to do dining ins and dining outs and, you know, writing thank you cards. Uh, which was interesting'cause I, you know, I never got taught etiquette, so I was like, okay, I'll pay attention. We were on break. It was, uh, early in the morning I was grabbing my coffee and the news was on. I was about to head back to class and I heard like, just horror in the newscasters. And I turned and I looked and that's when I saw the planes hitting the towers. And I'm like, and I knew instantly. I'm like, we, uh oh. Sorry for the bubble. My apple computer likes to do that better. Keep my hands down. I'm Italian, I talk, my hands, thumbs up. Oh, I can make balloons go off in fireworks. But I won't. Um, but yeah, so I knew we were under attack and 20 minutes later I got the call like, Hey, in San Cisco now pack your bags, you're going to war. And it actually took a year, well that was 2001, so it took a little over a year because I went to Gimo at the end of 2002,

Yoyo:

wow.

Lena:

Yeah.

Yoyo:

Is that where you most of your field work was then in Gitmo? Yes. Guantanamo Bay. For those that don't,

Lena:

yes.

Yoyo:

Good tv. Uh, yeah.

Lena:

Right.

Yoyo:

Yeah. Hit me a while to figure out what pot meant and then I, and I think we didn't, yes.

Lena:

Maga, you know,

Yoyo:

all nicknames for the president of the United States. Yeah. In fact we do, we call our pm Yeah, we call our prime minister the pm but there's no, yeah, yeah. I say that. Yeah. I guess

Lena:

there's too many words. You know,

Yoyo:

I saw a great movie with, Jodi Foster called the Manchurian Candidate, and I think it, I'm sure you know it, it's, a real think has movie in terms of perspective around nine 11 and prisoner interrogation. And so if anybody hasn't seen it. Definitely recommend it, but you know, the portrayal of Gitmo is quite clear in that movie. It's quite, oh

Lena:

yeah.

Yoyo:

It's quite shut away. It's very sort of isolated, uh, ironic that it's in Cuba when we have that kind of very tense relationship with Cuba

Lena:

hmm. Yeah, I, which is crazy. Um, but we do owe the own the land and we didn't want them on our fiscal continent, you know, so it was the best place. There was a prison there, it was shoddy, it was terrible. Uh, at the time it was the only thing that they had to use. They built a better prison, though I would've designed it completely differently. Um, and yeah, and that's where we had had'em all.

Yoyo:

What was it like going into your first real situation? I take it you would've had some type of brief and they're like looking to you to say right over to you. You're the expert. Yeah. What does that feel like?

Lena:

Um, I landed on Gimo the day that they were actually transferring all the prisoners from, um, camp X-Ray was called, where years ago they had all the prisoners from Haitian refugees. They kept there to Camp Delta, which is the new one. So it was sure chaos, um, buses and security guards. Everything was on lockdown. I mean, it was pandemonium. Um, and I arrived and I couldn't, I didn't have any birthing, so I made sure my guys had birthing, I got them settled into their houses and you know, where everything was needed to do. And, um, I went right to the camp and I met my team that I was. Taking over, replacing, uh,'cause they had just finished their tour, so they were going home and I got the tour of the camp and I got the tour of the interrogation cells. And I'm, when I walked in, I'm like, oh my God, what is that stench? And my, the girl that was giving me the tour, it's like, what, what smell? I'm like, you don't smell that. I'm like, it's disgusting in here. I have to work in here. Um, of course a week later I was given the tour with the same, you know, response. Like, what smell? You become nose blind to everything. Um, but yeah, it's, it was just chaos. I mean, I inherited, um, 30 detainees, uh, more so as time went on. Then I took over a team called tier three. It was, uh, for all of the hardcore detainees, meaning those who just didn't wanna talk. Um, yeah, it was crazy. My first interrogation sucked, excuse my language so bad that I went home and was. So mad and I was like, people are dying because I'm, I'm that bad. I'm awful. I shouldn't be here. I don't deserve to be here. I should kick myself off this island, send myself back home. And I guess I gave myself my own pep talk because the next day I was like, that is never gonna happen again. Like, I am bringing all of my training, everything and I'm gonna collect this information. And it worked. And I ended up, as the days went by, loving. My job, uh, I always loved psychology, always loved everything about human behavior, connecting with humans. I always think, um, you attract more bees with honey like rapport, rapport, rapport, non accusatory. Get to connect with this human on a human level. And when you can do that, you'll have trust. When you get trust, you get the truth. It's a simple equation lit. I mean, all you have to do, but you can't get the truth unless you get trust first. So while I was there, I started working and devising a new method, like a new approach to doing these interrogations. What you could call an interrogation, call an interview, call it a conversation. It is all the same. Um, and just interrogation just has this bad connotation where everybody thinks, oh, you're torturing. No, we didn't torture anybody there. Uh, I know people wanna believe we did, but listen, I was there for half a year. We didn't, I don't know what CIA did, but I can speak for DOD. We just didn't do it. Um, so I devised this new interviewing method and I had a lot of success with it. And now fast forward, what? 20 something years? I trained that method to, uh, United States law enforcement, both state and federal.

Yoyo:

So that that's pretty spesh really. When you think that you are there doing a job. A lot of people don't think while they're there doing a job in situ, oh, do you know I'm gonna design a way to do it better? What made you realize that the way it was happening wasn't good enough and that what you were doing was a magic ingredient?

Lena:

I know humans. I would just say, listen, if I was in their position, number one, you can't tell me to change my religion, never gonna happen. Number two, you can't have me believe something that is not ingrained in my belief, right? It's not gonna happen. So take that off the table. It's not a discussion. It should never come up in a discussion. Number three, if you're accusatory or you're yelling at me, or you're going to say, you know how, um. Bad of a human. I am because I did this Well, there's no way I'm gonna do anything for you. So make me feel good and appreciated. Listen to me listening does not mean you comply, does not mean you have to agree. It means you're listening. Treat this person the way you would wanna be treated if you were sitting in that chair and work from there. Right? That's just start from there

Yoyo:

does not surprise me at all. That as a woman, you found that pathway in. Yeah.'cause women generally show more empathy and can apply more empathy in their practices within the workplace, right?

Lena:

Absolutely. And we're more intuitive.

Yoyo:

And that's not to say that men can't be,'cause men when they have high emotional intelligence can be incredibly effective and very special individuals indeed,

Lena:

absolutely

Yoyo:

special. Not special, but just they can be incredibly special men when they've got high emotional intelligence. Q now lots of men Googling emotional intelligence. Yeah, right. Um, I'm working you, you know, when you're working with them. So it doesn't surprise me that the empathy that you would have naturally, and not all women have empathy and, you know, I'm trying to true to, I'm trying to be pragmatic here, but doesn't surprise me at all. When did you start to see it becoming really successful and realize you were onto something?

Lena:

It was like a month into my deployment there. Even my interpreters are like, we wanna work with you. We love your approach. You are so successful. Like, they will always wanted to work with me. Um, because I didn't create an uncomfortable environment. I. Everybody in my room was comfortable and felt safe, and I made sure of that, like that was step number one. You're gonna feel safe, you're gonna feel comfortable. You're not gonna worry or have any fear because fear will cause a communication barrier. Fear will shut you down. I. I need you to be open. So every possible way that I could, and you know what, because humans are different, I had to approach every detainee a little differently because they have personality changes or differences. They have differences in, um, their perception of me. Whatever it is, people are different. So I had to just, the first thing was get to know the person, then use my techniques because some may not work for this person. And I'll just, you know, waste a lot of my time and effort for nothing.

Yoyo:

I'm glad you mentioned perception of you because I think it is worth noting for those listening that, you know, Lena is an incredibly beautiful woman. we commented before that you look like Jennifer Aniston.

Lena:

Yes, yes. Uh,

Yoyo:

is pricking up now all over the place. Seriously. No shit. Um, and so and so. I guess you going in to see them as a much younger woman as well. Would've younger. A very different. Now, I can also imagine that going against you as well as for you in terms of not being, maybe people not taking you seriously because you were attractive, but then maybe could you have used your attractiveness to help warm people to you? How did it, how did that work?

Lena:

That's, that's a heavy question'cause all of it is in there. Um, I think being young, being female, uh, coming in, I would smile at all the detainees, smile. Hi, I am your interrogator, right? I mean, I got nothing to hide. You know who I am. You know what I'm here to do. Why would I, it's silly. Um, and just being that open, blunt, honest, smiling, it disarmed them immediately because they were like, whoa, who's she? What is she? Never once did I get disrespected. Never once. Now I had a couple say, I can't look at you'cause of my religion. Okay, fine. I'm not gonna argue that. Don't look at me. But I do want you to talk to me. We're gonna have a conversation. Um, so I think I was disarming, I was, well, I'm five foot four, although I have strong, apparently the doctor said. But anyway, um, the older you get, um, you know, I was a female. I was really young at the time, but I was also with an adult, uh, adult, an older male interpreter. So, you know, a lot of the, uh, age and gender would equal status. But here's the other thing. I was an American citizen, I wasn't part of their culture. So it's different how they treat women.'cause everyone's like, oh you must have got disrespected.'cause they disrespect their women. I'm like, well, if they do, okay. They just, they're disrespecting their women. I never got disrespected, I wasn't American. So we call it like being a third gender. Right? I wasn't really female. I definitely wasn't a male. I was somewhere in between.'cause I got tons of respect. Um, with. Okay. I can't remember what else you brought up rapport, who brought up disarming them. Um, looks, could it help maybe? Yeah, absolutely Right. Um, did I use it in any way other than building a rapport? Absolutely. Not even years later.'cause I used to train, um, I was a role player and I got hired by some Special forces community to, um, bump their students in training and try to elicit them and break their covers. Because now I train them in this technique, so I can't role play. They know who I am. But prior to knowing who I was, I never used, like, you know, being a female and doing what, I never flirted with them. I was strictly, this is who I am, I'm professional. Um, I'm gonna find common ground with you. I'm gonna connect with you and start a conversation. And that way the flags never went up. People trusted me because I wasn't creepy. I didn't give off that creepy vibe.

Yoyo:

And I guess really women that do use their attractiveness to be successful can come across incredibly fake. And

Lena:

yeah,

Yoyo:

we're all alert yes to those techniques now. And yes, as we evolve as humans, I think even detainees can be wise to trickery. Oh, so you've asked me if I want a cup of tea because you just wanna be my friend, and I'm not talking to you, and you're like, damn, the cup of tea trick's not

Lena:

good.

Yoyo:

Uh, okay. Roll out the tea. We don't want tea. You can imagine this sketch.

Lena:

Oh, we had that too. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Listen, if you are gonna do a ruse right, it will be found out at some point. You gotta be credible. That's the bottom line. And your credibility is gonna come from how you communicate both verbally and non-verbally. What is your body language saying? Is it congruent with what you're saying? What are you words saying? Are you speaking eloquently? Are you speaking clearly and concisely, or are there a lot of filler words and a lot of ums and guesses and all of that? Because you're going to gain your credibility in your communication tactics.

Yoyo:

Yeah. And so how, just interviewed a, a great, uh, a great hostage negotiator, seasoned hostage negotiator who talked at great length on the art of listening, and I guess really would have, and I know you know where I'm going with this. But a lot of people think being a hostage negotiator is a super cool, sexy job, but don't realize that actually it requires a lot of very uncool, unsexy things like just not talking, listening of with a purpose of listening and it's pretty tough and grueling. How much would listening a part of your required skillset for what you had to do.

Lena:

Huge. It's the biggest part because you have to listen for two things, obviously. Information, number one, um, you're collecting intelligence, which is information. It needs to be actionable, it needs to be validated, so you have to listen for the information, the details in order to check and validate the truthfulness and accuracy of all the information, and then listen to follow up with really good. Questions to fully exploit everything, but you also have to listen to something else. And this is, um, I think the biggest part that people forget. You have to listen to the needs and motivations of people. Every person has a motivation and need to tell the truth. Every single one of us, right? Well, what is it if, I don't know. I can't guess at it, right? I can't say, well, oh, you know Yolanda, I know you have a family and your family is number one, so of course you are going to want to, um, tell me the truth.'cause if you don't, your family could suffer. And you're thinking, I don't have a family there. You know, it's not my family. Family's not important to me. Um, my religion's important to me. So if I start using the family to get you, or to motivate you to tell me the truth, it's not gonna work on you because you don't care that much about family. Your care, your motivation is somewhere else. Religion, money, uh, what people think of you. And so listening to how people talk, you're gonna find that motivation. But that means you have to ask really good questions to find out who this person is and what really motivates them. So listening is huge.

Yoyo:

As a former police officer in the uk one of the most valuable things that I learned when we were learning how to interview, you see in the uk, we're not allowed to use the word interrogation because of the implications of what it means,

Lena:

like

Yoyo:

beating someone up. Tell me the truth. Um, as much as we so Hollywood, as much as we wanted to do that, tell me the truth. I loved it when we went through that part of the training where. They said, listen for what they're not saying.

Lena:

Yeah.

Yoyo:

Because sometimes and clever people will give you, you know, a good narrative. They'll come across incredibly believing. But it's what they're not telling you. It's really important to look out for. And that skillset I was able to take with me for the rest of my life. And it's been so valuable. you know, as someone stops talking in the middle of a sentence and they, and then you think, what were they gonna say? Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. and part of the, Interview process that I really loved in both dealing with detainees and with witnesses was all about, the first recall. The first free account where you just sit and listen completely uninterrupted. You don't give any steering any direction.

Lena:

Mm-hmm. You just

Yoyo:

listen to that first account until they stop talking, no matter how long it is. Yes. and that's really interesting.'cause then you go back and you start saying, okay, so in the beginning you said, da, da, da. And they're understanding that you genuinely are listening to them. And then yes, breath starts to form there, doesn't it?

Lena:

Absolutely. Um, and that's a technique that I train. I'm like, listen to their story, and I teach all of my participants. You're gonna timeline them, right? Because the timelining technique is a five step technique, will discover any lie if they're lying. You'll be able to tell whether or not that story's coming from the episodic memory or their semantic memory. But listening is gonna help you formulate your follow on questions. If you're not listening, what? What are you gonna question them on? Right? It's just, it doesn't make any sense. And when you listen to people again, they know. They know whether you're tuning them out, whether you're rushing things,'cause you're impatient.'cause you just wanna get to the next question or the question that you think is important. And so they're gonna start listening how much they share because you're tuning them out. Why are they gonna share anything? I wouldn't if you tuned me out, be like, okay, conversation over goodbye. You are wasting my time.

Yoyo:

I think also, you know, a lot of people sort of talk to me about the kind of work that I do outside of this and one of the key things that I have to have really is curiosity in asking questions. I think it just helps to have that base training because employing a curious person is not something you see on a job description. But there are some jobs that just revol, especially in security, you be curious. Is one of the key prerequisites, but also that skillset in interviewing, and it was never to the level that you were doing. it made me a better interviewer when it came to recruiting and interviewing people for vacancies and jobs, and I loved that. It just made me better. But I tell you what made me the best listener of all is doing a podcast because.

Lena:

Yes, that will I tell you, because I'm an extrovert, so I know my personality. I'm a high originator. I love change. I get bored easily. I'm an extrovert. I always wanna talk. Talking is easier than listening., but when I became an interrogator, ooh, did I have to learn to just keep quiet? Oh, and even though I had a million follow up questions ready to go, I had to put them at bay. And if I didn't trust my memory skills, I wrote them down. Yeah, I'll come back to that. I'll come back to this and I always, at the beginning of every conversation, interrogation, interview, whatever you wanna call it, I would say, listen, I'm gonna take notes on everything so that they don't get upset when I quickly take notes on the most important thing. So they have no idea what I think is important or unimportant. So that precedence is right up in front. Like I'm gonna take notes on everything. And you're okay with that, right? And I purposely ask one leading question in all my interviews, and that's it. Because no one ever says no. People are like, uh, yeah. Okay, great. Thank you. This is really for your benefit because I don't wanna forget anything that you say. Yeah. You know, and, and make it all about I'm here for you. Um, this way I can take a million notes, notes to myself. I've wrote little things like, that's deceptive, that's truthful. Um, don't, don't forget to ask this question. Follow up on this discrepancy, blah, blah, blah.

Yoyo:

Tell me of a time that it didn't quite go to plan for you and something that maybe you frequently go back to.

Lena:

I will tell you what I go back to, which is why I created my method and really just stuck to it.'cause I'm like, no, there's no better way than my method. Uh, strategic rapport based, not accusatory is because when I went through training in 1997, we were taught, no, I'm sorry, 1999. We were taught, um, fear up. Fear up does not mean I'm yelling, screaming, and you know, torturing you. Right? Fear up was meant to increase the fear of the unknown. How long are you gonna stay in Gimo? Don't know. When are you gonna go back to yourself? Don't know. What if we find out information that you didn't tell us? Don't know, right? That was the fear of the unknown. Um, but we also had pride and ego down, which is, I'm going to belittle you. And make you feel bad, guilty, shameful. And we had to practice all 19 approach techniques. You can read a bottom in the FM two T 22, T three, it's unclassified. You can Google it. Uh, there was also a futility approach, which is like, listen, your life is hopeless. All you have is me now. So I tried a couple of those and I did the pride and ego down, and it just blew up in my face. I sat back and I looked at my interpreter and he looked at me like, what are you gonna do now?'cause you just ruined this whole interrogation. That was my first interrogation, by the way. Um, I was like, yeah, I did, didn't I? You can't come back from putting someone down. You can't come back from being accusatory or rude because at that point you've lost it and they don't care about you anymore. In fact, they kind of hate you at that point. So at that point, my detainees like. You're, you are rude. I don't like you. Get out. I don't wanna talk to you. I was like, what am I gonna do? I can't make'em talk. And that was the lesson learned for me. Never ever will I do that again. Never, ever. And so that was the night I was like, there's a better way. I know there's a better way I gonna tap into all of this knowledge I have and I'm gonna combine it all together and I'm gonna create a better way.

Yoyo:

You see it in movies, don't you? Where you see a detainee, and I know this is for dramatic effect, but you see them deprived of any type of human interaction. Mm-hmm. And then first thing they're exposed to, and this is on the extreme scale, is incredible, genuine warmth and kindness to the point where it is even kind of so psychologically, you know, challenging for the individual.

Lena:

Mm-hmm.

Yoyo:

I guess really, I've never had to do that to anyone that I've arrested. I loved, going to their cell before the interview Yeah. Before they'd even met me, so I could be, I had a job once where I, my job was to arrest everybody who'd been detained overnight.

Lena:

Okay.

Yoyo:

Yep. We were picking up, it's like a mixed bag of all sorts really. and I'd go in and, you know, check on them in their cell and say, Hey, listen, I think you're gonna go into your interview soon. Do you want a cup of tea or something? You know, before, before you go in. Just, that nice smile,

Lena:

compassion

Yoyo:

right, because I'm thinking, you know, they know that their interview's coming now, uh, there's a, there's a touch point there. The, somebody's actually just offered them something without them having to ask for it. Mm-hmm. And, at the same time as well. I remember that thinking. I am measuring them up whilst

Lena:

I'm

Yoyo:

having that interaction with them, I'm looking to see if they make eye contact with me, if they're going to be cooperative, if responsive, so that preps me before I go into the meeting. And then I'll even say before we, you know, press the record button. So, you had a cup of tea, is that all right? That cup of tea. Nice. Yeah. If you need anything else, we'll pause for a hot drink. It's nice to have a cup of tea sometimes. A bit of creature comfort.

Lena:

Yes. I love that.

Yoyo:

I always used to do really well in that sense, but I used to get an awful lot of criticism from my peers who didn't get it. Oh yeah. They would literally say quite brutally, you should be in fucking social services. And I'm like, no, not be disparaging to anyone in social services. I'm an intelligent woman and I realized that this is a better methodology, which is why when I first got chatting to you, I really felt this affinity with you and where you'd come from in your career.

Lena:

Listen, what we do, what you did, right, what I did, what we still do today, it is all strategic. This is why my course is called Strategic Law Enforcement Interview Course. It's not tactical. Tactical is Mutt and Jeff getting mad, throwing something, tell me blah, blah, blah. Right? It's the Hollywood stuff you see that people think interrogation iss all about. No it's not. This is strategic. There's a reason why I am offering the cup of tea because it is gonna reward me. 10 minutes from now, 25 minutes from now. It is step one and step one has a lot of layers to getting that person to trust me. And when I get them to trust me, I'm gonna soak them dry of everything they know. And you won't be able to do it because you never put a plan together and thought about this conversation strategically reverse engineered it. In order to be able to get your information, you're winging it. You're gonna use your anger and frustration as a disguise for your lack of competence. That's what you're gonna do. And you're not gonna get anywhere. Yeah. It's so old school. Listen, it takes nothing to be angry. A 2-year-old can do it. Nothing. There's no, um, strategy in that. There's no intelligence involved, nothing. And when I see people lose their cool in an interview, I pity them. I'm like to go back to training.

Yoyo:

We got taught that getting an admission was never necessarily the end game when into not. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it took a lot of people, a lot of police professionals who had been in the job a lot longer. It took them a long time to realize that, that what a suspect would talk about. And remember, they're just a suspect. Right? Yeah. Our job, and we, it was made very clear and I'm sure it's changed. Not change that much is to gather as much evidence as possible and intelligence.

Lena:

Mm-hmm. So

Yoyo:

it's not about hammering home an admission.'cause an admission if it's not substantiated with a good account can mean absolutely nothing down the line. But old fashioned cops, they wanted to, God got him to confess, I've got an admission and it's just, it's changed a lot. What part of your journey did you realize that body language'cause being a body language expert that you are now, at what point did you realize body language was gonna be very, very important?

Lena:

Ooh. Um, before I went to Gimo, my year long training, it was a year,'cause you know, we were reservists. I had one hour of what they called EPW, psychology Enemy Persons of War Psychology. One hour, five zero minutes.'cause I had a 10 minute break, you know, on the hour, 50 minutes. Of a little bit of body language and stress. That's all I had. So I, all of my knowledge comes from OJT, uh, on the job training, evaluating, researching, self-study. And then of course, as years went on, I did more study with my, you know, on my own in the set. Um. But body language is huge in two ways. Number one, I have to be aware of what I'm mine is saying. Number two, I gotta read it of other people, but words, it's not all about body language. And you know, even though people know me as a body language expert, I really wish they would just say communication expert, because I will put more stake in words. Um, I trust words more to find out the truth. A hundred percent because people, number one, can have a lot of weird stuff going on in the body. Pains, ailments, um, they could be sick. They have a pulled muscle. They are trying to trick you. There's 1,000,002 things. They're sweating, they're nervous because of something completely unrelated to what you're talking about. So you're gonna see all this, and as an expert, we're gonna shuffle through it. We're gonna baseline you, and we, we will see it, right? We'll get it, but your words will dime you out every time. Really, you just have to Oh yeah. You'll have to listen to'em. Well, uh, and I mean, it's just words will dime you out every time.,

Yoyo:

what's your view? We learned that, liars can't lie backwards in terms Yeah. Yes. In terms of, yeah, it's true. So if you think someone's given you a whole baloney story, just get'em to tell the story backwards and they can't. Mm-hmm. So, that's true then.

Lena:

Yeah. It's because of this Now could. We teach people to lie backwards. Oh, absolutely. But most liars don't think about it, number one. And so they don't practice it. Number two. And when you ask'em to tell it to them backwards, because the lie came for your semantic memory, which is just known information, looped together with nothing, right? Probably bridged together with text bridges, and now your episodic memory, which is autobiographical. You cannot put that chunk of information that you loop together to tell a story. Backwards. You can't tell it to yourself backwards because you have, there's no memory of it and it's incredibly hard to do even when you practice. But if it's something that you truly did and it's an autobiographical event from your episodic memory, you can tell it backwards. Of course, the length of time between the event and when you're telling it, it's going to impact that. But you can tell it backwards because you did it. And all you have to do is remember the bits you did in tell it in reverse. With the semantic memory, there's, you didn't do it. There's no experience of it, so it's almost impossible for the brain to flip it backwards.

Yoyo:

It is phenomenal, isn't it? That Yeah. As a technique, although I haven't really had the need or use for that, since I've left the police. Yes, maybe a lying, cheating boyfriend along the way, but uh,

Lena:

yeah, tell it to me backwards. Yeah, it's a little odd, but, but yeah, I used it in on litigant and a couple of other stuff that I did for the government.

Yoyo:

you've written, haven't you?'cause you're already an author, but you've already got stuff cooking coming down the pipeline. Yeah. How important is writing about your experiences? Do you find it very cathartic or is it a very pain? I ask all authors this, is it a painful journal? Yeah. Does it turn out what you want it to be?

Lena:

Oh, I love it. It, it's not painful at all. Uh, for me, I never knew this, but I, I am a writer. I love writing. I love it, love it, love it so much that I literally, I don't even know if you could say that word. People are like, why do people say that word? It doesn't make sense. But yesterday I started two new books. So I have, they're both kind of cooking. I am gonna do a proposal, 30 page, 30 page proposal for one. So it's probably gonna take the lead. Um, I love it. And if I can share knowledge with people because this is knowledge for everyday people, right? It's not just uniformed investigators, interrogators, no. This is for everyday people. No matter what you do, no matter what industry you work in. When I can share something about human behavior that could help you, that makes me feel good and I love to write. So combine those two things together, it is a great experience for me.

Yoyo:

We'll have to make sure that we've got the links available for what you have published and yes, details around your courses. What sort of people outside law enforcement get involved with your courses and content?

Lena:

So I have a lot of people in employee relations. Um, and it can be from the ground level all the way up to C-suite level. I have people from, I can't name companies, but you would recognize these massive company who's come to me and say, I'm in charge of 200 people and I am in. You know, I'm the one that has to deliver the bad news and I need a better way to do it. I need to feel more secure doing it. Um, I have a lot of business people, entrepreneurs, um, company owners. Then I just have people come to you.'cause they want to be better communicators. They just want to lead better. They wanna give feedback to their team better. They wanna choose a team better. Yeah. So it's a lot of that, those business people and even listen better. Oh, a hundred percent. I, and I think what I've come along the way, yes, I love interrogating. I was great at it, but what I really have come to thrive at now is when people come to me with a problem and a challenge because I'm not in it. Right. I can see all sides, 380 degrees of it, and I can come up with really unique ways, better ways, um, success, successful ways of getting to the heart of the problem, of let, of allowing you to control that conversation and identify the problem and get the information you want. And I mean, this happens all the time in my classes and I will have people come back going, you were so right. It wasn't this person. I needed to talk to this person. I needed to say that. And we got it. We got the, you know, grant, we got the merger, whatever it is. Because I have this ability to see all sides when you bring me your problem. Listen, I, when I have problems, I don't see all sides. I go to a good mentor and I'm like, all right, this is what's going on. Help me out. What do I say? What do I do? But when you're in your own world, we tend to take things personally, right? We have emotions involved, but I don't have any of that. So I look at this huge objective lens of about your issue, right? It's all around communication. And for me, I'm like, okay, this is what we're gonna do. Step 1, 2, 3, 4, 20, you know, 86, whatever.

Yoyo:

I told, my work buddy that I went to an event last night and, I met, quite a senior person, was wing man for my, for my bestie. And I met one of her senior people in her workplace whom she doesn't speak to very often. We just got talking and, I'm her wing man. I dunno anybody there. She had a cancellation and this guy, I remember leaving him walking away and I said to my friend, I said. That's the first man I've spoken to who's been really conversational, who's asked me questions without them, without there being an intent behind it. And I've, I found myself just being really shocked, like. Taking a sharp breath in, like, wow. Because I'm finding that people don't ask questions of genuine curiosity anymore. and it's sort of one of my bug bears is when people listen to talk, and you see it all the time, you ask somebody a question, they don't ask you anything back. They're just, all they wanna do is talk. At what you said, and so few people ask me anything. It to the point where when someone says to me, even in the work environment, I want your opinion on this. I'm like, yes. Big ears. I'm here.

Lena:

Listen, if you wanna get to the heart of someone, show interest in them. That's it. Interest in them, who they are, their opinions, what they have to say. That is the core of connection. But if we're not interested and so many people nowadays are like, not interested, I'm not going to make the effort. Okay. Don't.

Yoyo:

You can spot it. So listeners, as you are, you know, going around your daily life, who is listening to you to talk and who is listening because they really want to hear what you have to say. Take me through TV series Killer Performance. What was that all about?

Lena:

I got contacted to be on this TV show. They pitched it to me. I got to go to Wales, so, so excited. So we filmed there. Yep. And it was all about serial killers. Now I had known most of them very intimately. Not the way you're thinking. Uh, I just know their background. I know the story. I've watched gobs of videos. I use them in my training for, um, indicators of deception and you know, this and whatever. So I was like, yeah, this is so up my alley. Super, super interested. They're like, well. It's gonna be three experts. You are one of the three. We want you to really focus on their words, like that statement analysis with the body language. Um, and then we had Mark Boden, who is a friend of mine, he did body language and we had a psychologist there. So it was really good. Uh, team. So they gave me the list, two people I had never heard before, and I watched all their videos and listen, there's nothing better for me than to analyze videos. I love it because I just tune out the world and I get so intensely involved and my awareness just opens up and I see and hear all of these little things, and I love doing the analysis. Of what I see in here. So when they asked me to do it, I was like, absolutely, 100% I'm coming over. And it was really good. Um, the whole TV production was new for me, even though I had worked three years in couples court. This was very different. Um, I just, it was great. The team was fantastic. The producers were fantastic. I loved it. Great time.

Yoyo:

Did you, did you enjoy the series? Mind hunter?

Lena:

I haven't watched it.

Yoyo:

No, you should I admit that

Lena:

I, I probably should. I probably should. I,

Yoyo:

I think you should, because you, they've based the act. So if you look at Ted Bundy, for example. Yeah. They've literally copied The dramatization. The dramatization is exactly the same video as in real life.

Lena:

No way. Okay. Yeah. Alright, so

Yoyo:

you can see the inflections, the actors really worked hard to, imitate. Each of the serial killers. Yeah.

Lena:

And

Yoyo:

for those that don't know Mindhunter is, it's a wonderful story about how the FBI learned about the term serial killer. And that's how it was invented.'cause they realized that killers were killing more than one and there was a connection, different murders that they could draw correlation with the evidence and look at the fact that they were dealing one offender and not several. Took them a long time to realize it. And how, and the other thing that came out was how charming some of these. Killers What?

Lena:

Psychopaths? Yeah.

Yoyo:

Just charming, but not falsely charming. Like sincerely charming, you know? Yeah. Plays with your head, like you come out, you think? Is that guy he just really strangled four women, you,

Lena:

yeah. Well, the sincerity piece comes from their brain saying, if I do this, I get to do that. So it makes me feel good. There's no stress involved. There's dopamine. So I come across as very charismatic, very congruent in my behavior, very trustworthy because I know if I can butter you up and I can make you feel very special and I get you to be attracted to me, then I can rape and kill you and cut you up into pieces later. Yay. For me. Right? That's a psychopathic mind because they are looking at the action of seducing you or whatever, building that trust with you. As a means to their end, right? If they do that, they get what they want out of you. That creates dopamine, that creates this really good feeling. So they come across as relaxing, confident, charismatic, and just, you know, a people person. And we tend to trust charismatic people. That's what we do. Right.

Yoyo:

We definitely watch it because I think of

Lena:

all I'm going to, I

Yoyo:

think of all of the real intelligent. Documentary, Dramatizations because it's so close to the truth. I think you might find it more intriguing. The actors are very, very good. And then I found myself googling the serial killers afterwards to find out more about them. And did that really happen? and then you read, even if you go to Wikipedia, which is generally good, you've got all the dates and the accounts and all the different and how long they've been in prison, they're still alive or not, and you think Christ. Yeah. You know, what they did in that series was revolutionary. they put a framework in for

Lena:

Wow.

Yoyo:

For those types of murders and identifying those types of killers. I think you'll like it.

Lena:

I know I will. Okay. I think I might have to watch it tonight. Oh, believe you haven't

Yoyo:

it already. Yeah. Yeah.

Lena:

I know, and people have said that to me. They always ask, what'd you think of it? And I'm like, I haven't seen it yet. They're like, what? I'm gonna watch it before we go. Tell me a story. Yes. Oh boy. A story. All right. About what?'cause I got a lot of'em. Pick your favorite.

Yoyo:

Pick your favorite. you've only got a day to live. You can only tell one story, which is it gonna be?

Lena:

It's probably gonna be about animals.'cause I love them. But this is a podcast about interrogation right now. Yeah. I'll tell you a story. Okay. I write about it in my book because it also, uh, clarified. To me, it gave me the reason as to why I knew my method was gonna work and it was gonna be successful. Um, Abdulaziz was his name. He was a Saudi, uh, detainee. Saudis were tough, tough as nails, and it's not because they were, uh, mean and aggressive, it's just they didn't talk. They could sit there stoic. And not say anything for days on end. So my interpreter and I were getting prepared to interrogate a Saudi, and I thought, oh gosh, you're gonna be here for eight hours. It's gonna be grueling. I'm gonna try my best to connect with this person. I'm gonna get nowhere, right? All this negative self-talk. And I'm like, stop talking like this, because if you're gonna think you're gonna fail, you're gonna fail. So I'm like, switch the mindset. Switch my mindset. I'm like, no, this is gonna be different. We're gonna do something different. So I had a whole plan that I wrote up. Um,'cause back in the day you had to write an interrogation plan and get it signed off by the head boss before you went into the booth. Um, and I hear the guards coming into our trailer. They're yelling detainee on deck. Abdul Aziz walks down, my interpreter and I are like bracing, like, okay, let's get ready. What's gonna happen? He comes in the door and he's not what I expected. Normally some of the Saudis would come in very, didn't matter how tall they were, their stature, but they would come in kind of puffed up and be like, yeah, what do you want? Like this ego, right? This, uh, maybe machoism, this big bravado coming in, uh, very tough. So he wasn't like that at all. He was kind of slumped over and I'm like, Ooh, we have a concave body language. That means you're protecting your power zones. That means you're feeling a little in. Secure. You are not my typical Saudi. I'm like, okay. Noted watching your body language. As soon as he tipped his head up to look at me, I gave him a big old smile and I was like, welcome to your interrogation. I'm your interrogator. And he smiled, and then he caught himself and he s scowled. I was like, oh no, no, that's a fake scowl. That's not real'cause it's lasted on your face for too long. So I had him sit in a nice chair and he kept saying, no, no, I don't wanna, I don't want him. Please, I want you to be comfortable. I'm gonna do everything I can for you during this interrogation. Um, reluctantly sat in the nice comfortable chair a couple, maybe 20 minutes later, had his handcuffs off. That was like my next little incentive. Brought him some tea. Fast forward three months later, right? He's, he's become. My confidant, like he literally, I become his confidant. He became my informant. So he was so cooperative with me that he leaned over to me one night and said, Hey, I wanna work for the Americans. And he winged. I was like, oh, okay. What do I do with this? Um,'cause I'm DOD like, we don't, don't do this. Um, but I was like, all right, well how about we do this? We devised a plan and he started listening to the conversations on the cell block and coming back to me to report it. Anyway, uh, it was coming time where another agency wanted him'cause they thought he was super valuable. Yeah. And um, yes, he was. I was leaving. Yeah, right. I have no letters mentioned. Um, and then by the way, when he got to them, he closed off. He went talk to'em. They had to call me and say, will you please get him to talk to us? Anyway, before I was leaving one night, he said, Hey, um, in Arabic, it's being translated. He's like, Hey, um, do you wanna know why? I was so cooperative with you and I gave you all this information. I wanted to work with you and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, yeah, do all these, I would like to know why. He's like, because you were so nice to me that I couldn't lie to you. He goes, I had a plan. I was gonna lie to you just like my cousins did. I did not wanna like you. I was gonna be mean to you. He goes, but you had to go and smile at me and give me that nice chair. He goes, I just couldn't. And I was like, wow. Reciprocity. Yeah. Trust. Connect with people. Treat'em like a human. You will get what you want. You'll get the truth. And that's when I was like, yeah, my method works. It's a lie. It's not easy'cause there's so many components of it. But if you literally follow that simple formula. Connect, get trust, you'll get the truth 100%. We

Yoyo:

cannot underestimate how important that is because they've been in a cell. They are isolated from their families. They have no idea what their families are doing, whether their families are safe, they're not. They're away from all of their creature comforts as psychological practice broken. And I think to achieve that kind of success. Cannot be underestimated. Well done you. Thank you. What can I say? Lena? Cisco, thank you so, so much for joining us on the Security Circle podcast.

Lena:

Well, thank you for being patient with me and being persistent with me to get me here. Thank you so much for the invitation. I'm honored and yeah. When you've written that book. Let me have a copy

Yoyo:

of it and we'll have a, I will note just on your book alone.

Lena:

Yes.'cause it's all about dark psychology and how to combat it. I'm very happy about,'cause I know this book is gonna help a lot of people.

Yoyo:

We love a bit of dark in the security industry.

Lena:

Thank you, Lena. Thank you.