Designed for:  Auditors, CPAs, and governance and compliance professionals interested in improving thinking quality, decision-making, and problem-solving skills.

Untapped: Teaching Auditors to be Better Thinkers

“It’s not what you know, it’s how you think”

Designed especially for auditors, this class is a practical call to action that provides auditors with the tools and inspiration they need to be better thinkers.  You’ll learn habits and strategies you can use every day to dramatically improve judgment and decision-making.  You’ll learn how to break down mental barriers and alleviate mental fatigue.  You’ll achieve new levels of mental clarity, flexibility, and resilience. You will also benefit from better overall mental well-being and be more resistant to stress and burnout. Attendees leave as more powerful and confident thinkers and better communicators and problem-solvers.

Major subjects:

• Dimensional thinking
• Situational awareness
• Understanding skepticism and other important constructs on a different level
• Handling high-stakes situations and difficult conversations
• Strategies to become a more resilient and flexible thinker
• Controlling and optimizing your mental resources
• Decluttering your mind for higher clarity and greater mental bandwidth

Learning objectives: 

• Apply “Signal to Noise Ratio” to skeptical reasoning
• Apply the concept of “orientation” to see connections between ideas
• Apply “offloading” to achieve mental clarity
• Identify the “surface structure” and “deep structure” of problems

Thinking Beyond Patterns: Finding Meaning in Your Data

New technologies and analytical methods detect myriad patterns in our data, but what do they really mean and what decisions can they help us make? Is the underlying data reliable? Is it valid for the purpose you are using it? Cognitive technologies distance us from the context of our data, shrouding the meaning behind the patterns and how to apply the information for effective decision-making. New thinking approaches are required to move beyond simple recognition of correlations to insight into why relationships exist. This session will teach methods that give us the ability to discern the inner character of problems, to recognize why interactions occur, and what decisions can be made with the information.

Major Subjects:

• Moving from “perceiving” to “meaning”
• How to develop situational awareness
• Why you should know the limitations of your data
• The cognitive science of emotional intelligence
• Data screening methods

Learning objectives: Attendees will learn thinking approaches that support deeper insight into the meaning behind information, allowing them to detect unusual patterns, deal with contradictory evidence and to develop skills that boost their understanding of meaning behind complex connections.

Ethics in The Real World

To improve ethical behavior, we build ethics codes, conduct ethics training, and emphasize an ethical “tone at the top.” Research shows, though, that these traditional initiatives too often harm ethical reasoning more than they help. We inaccurately predict how people will respond to behavioral initiatives and teach ethics using ineffective approaches. This class explains what actually works in the real world and what doesn’t. We will answer questions such as why we make choices that contradict our own ethical beliefs and why we falsely recollect our decisions as being ethical when they were not. We’ll apply what we learn to be able to improve our future ethical behavior at the individual and organizational levels.

Major Subjects:

• Why ethics codes fail

• How tone at the top affects organizational decision-making

• Why traditional ethics training results in ethical failures

• How to recognize unconscious defense mechanisms

• Making decisions under pressure

Learning objectives:

• Distinguish between characteristics of effective versus ineffective ethics codes

• Identify at least one common misunderstanding about tone at the top

• Recognize why traditional ethics training doesn’t improve ethical reasoning

Speaker: Toby Groves, Ph.D.

Dr. Toby Groves is a research psychologist and popular speaker specializing in elevating thinking quality, achieving breakthroughs, and unlocking untapped cognitive potential. Known for his innovative cognitive strategies and vivid mental imagery techniques, Dr. Groves has captivated audiences across industry, government, and academia. He works with professionals in critical fields such as audit, intelligence, investigation, legal, and medical sectors. Holding a PhD in psychology and an MA in industrial-organizational psychology, with additional training in forensic psychology and forensic accounting, Dr. Groves’ unique approach has made him a sought-after presenter for individuals responsible for making critical, high-stakes decisions and solving complex problems impacting our society.

This will be a hybrid (in-person and virtual event) - Virtual tickets limited to 40.  There will be giveaways and raffles for in-person attendees.

CPE: 8 Hours (NASBA Certified)