….
WEEK -140
“Disciplined questioning.”
Moving the disputing parties and other participants in mediation from talking to conversation, and from there to fruitful discussion , and slowly towards negotiation and at the end , leading them to the stage of taking decision either way is navigated by the mediator.
Objectives of questioning by the mediator has to be well understood.
Logic behind questioning prompts the answerer to have reasoning behind answering.
Generally the disputing party / the one who takes decision may assign reason/s for the decision. Though it is not the duty of the mediator to influence the party/s to take or not to take such decision, the mediator may have to assist the parties in evaluating on their own, the decision that they have taken. It is in this context the mediator has to get trained in “ disciplined questioning’.
By asking gentle questions mediator encourages the party/s to analyze each of the thoughts preceding the decisions from many angles . The mediator uses skills of direction and re-direction.
In order to enable the trainees to do this, the trainer may follow the following :-
- Situational role play :Give them a role play. Identify a situation from the context of the role play.
- Context of question: Ask the trainees to select /choose the context of question
- Context answers :Ask them to frame questions in such a way that answers given by the participants in mediation are only “ context answers”.
- Scripting the question: Ask them to write down the question before asking them.
- Anticipating reply: Ask them to anticipate the answers and write down the same in shorthand .
- Rephrase- redirect:Ask them to rephrase and redirect the questions
Caution: Every question should be “issue specific”.
“He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer.”
Elie Wiesel American Writer Nobel Laureate
Author of Night
(All copyrights reserved by the author S.Susheela)
Training of Trainers in Mediation 