Questions Mediators Ask
Introduction
Master mediator Ken Cloke has generously shared some of his most impactful questions. © Kenneth Cloke
Some Generic Questions (1)
What question, if answered, could make the greatest difference to the future?
What's important to you about the question? Why do you care?
What draws you to this issue, conflict or question?
What's our intention here? What's the deeper purpose that is really worthy of your best effort?
What opportunities do you see in it?
What do you know so far and still need to learn about it?
What are the dilemmas/opportunities in it?
What assumptions do you need to test or challenge in thinking about it?
What would someone who had a very different set of beliefs say about it?
What do you hear underneath the variety of opinions being expressed?
What's at the center of the issue for you?
What's emerging for you? What new connections are you making?
What has real meaning for you from what you've heard? What surprised you? What challenged you? What has changed?
What's missing from this picture so far? What is it you're not seeing? What do you need more clarity about? What new questions do you have?
What's been your major learning, insight, or discover so far?
What's the next level of thinking you need to do?
If there was one thing that hasn't yet been said in order to reach a deeper level of understanding/clarity, what would that be?
Some Generic Questions (2)
What would it take to bring about a significant change on this issue?
What could happen that would enable you to feel fully engaged and energized about it?
What's possible in addressing this issue or question, and who else cares about it? (rather than "What's wrong and who's responsible?")
What needs your immediate attention going forward? What stands in your way? How might it be turned to advantage?
If your success was completely guaranteed, what bold steps might you be willing to take? Why not take them anyway?
How support do you need in taking the next steps in finding a solution? What unique contribution can each person make?
How prepared are you to realize that your entire approach until now may be wrong or mistaken?
What conversations, if they began today, could ripple out to create new possibilities for the future?
What seeds might you plant today that could make the greatest difference to the future?
[Based partly on: Eric E. Vogt, Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, The Art of Powerful Questions]
Questions on Disagreements (1)
What is at the heart of this issue for you as an individual?
Do you see any gray areas in the issue we are discussing, or ideas it's difficult to define?
Do you have any mixed feelings, uncertainties, or discomforts regarding this issue that you would be willing to share?
Is there any part of this issue that you are not 100% certain of, or would be willing to discuss and talk about?
Even though you hold widely differing views, are there any concerns or ideas you think you may have in common?
What underlying values or ethical beliefs have led you to your current views?
What values or ethical beliefs do you think you might have in common?
Do the differences between your positions reveal any riddles, paradoxes, contradictions, or enigmas regarding this issue?
Is it possible to view your differences as two sides of the same coin? If so, what unites them? What is the coin?
What is beneath that idea for you? Why does it matter to you?
Can you separate the issues from the people you disagree with? What if you can't?
Is there anything positive or acknowledging you would be willing to say about the people on the other side of this issue?
What processes or ground rules would help you disagree more constructively?
Instead of focusing on the past, what would you like to see happen in the future? Why? Are you disagreeing about fundamental values, or about how to achieve them?
Questions on Disagreements (2)
Is there a way that both of you might be right? How? '
What criteria could you use to decide what works best?
Would it be possible to test your ideas in practice and see which work best? How might
you do that?
Would you be willing to jointly investigate your conflicting factual assertions? How would you do that?
How is everyone in the group feeling right now about the tone of this discussion? What could we do to improve it?
What could be done to make each side's ideas more appealing?
Could any of the other side's ideas be incorporated into yours? How?
Is there any aspect of this issue that either of you have left out? Are there any other perspectives you haven't described?
Are there any other ways you can think of to say that?
Do you think it would be useful to continue this conversation in order to learn more about each other and what you each believe to be true?
How could we make this conversation more ongoing or effective?
What could each of you do to improve the ways you disagreeing with each other in the future?
Would you be willing to do that together?
Some Internalizing Questions in Conflict
Have you ever experienced this kind of conflict before? When? With whom?
Can you imagine letting it go and releasing it forever? If not, why not?
What kinds of conflicts have you experienced in your life? What do they have in common.?
What are some things you haven't done but should have. What kept you?
List some things you have done but shouldn't have. What compelled you?
What part of your past controls your present? What if it were different?
How much of what you have done in this conflict do you think was chosen by you? How much by others?
Who wrote the script for what you did or did not do? When? Why?
What myths and assumptions do you think shaped this script?
What is this conflict asking you to learn or let go of?
Is there any difference between what you thought or felt and what you said?
What are the most important things you have learned in your life?
What judgments do you have about yourself based on your life choices?
What were your peak experiences? What were your greatest failures?
What do you never, ever want to experience again? What do you think will prevent you from doing so?
What do you imagine your life will be like in 5 years?
What epitaph would you write for yourself? How would you like it to read?
Coaching Questions in Conflict
What did you contribute by action or inaction to making this conflict happen?
With hindsight, how might you have handled it better?
How would you evaluate your responses so far? What have you done that has been effective? What hasn't been effective?
How have you suffered as a result of your own actions or inactions?
How have others suffered?
What does this conflict ask you to let go of or learn to accept?
What is the most important lesson you can learn from this conflict?
How would it be possible for both of your versions of what happened to be correct?
In what way could this conflict improve your life?
What's funny or ridiculous about this conflict? What is apt or profound?
What would it take for you to let go of this conflict completely?
What would happen in your life if you did?
Has your communication been effective in creating understanding in the other person? What could you do to improve it?
What skills could you develop in handling conflict? In responding to negative behavior?
Questions to Reveal Interests
Why do you want that?
If you could have anything, what would you want?
Help me understand why that is important to you.
What concerns do you have about this?
What would you do if you were in charge?
What are your goals for the future?
What would be wrong with accepting the other side's proposal?
What's the real problem here? • What would your proposal be if ( ·
What would be wrong with...?
Why not do it this way?
What are your fears?
What matters most to you?
What could the other side do to make their proposal II) acceptable to you?
Some Seriously Dangerous Questions
What have you done to create the very thing you are most troubled by?
What have you been clinging to or holding onto that it is now time for you to release?
What are you responsible for in your conflict that you have not yet acknowledged to the other person?
What do you most want to hear the other person say that you still haven' t mentioned?
What do you long for in your relationship with the other person?
What is the refusal, or "no" that you have not yet communicated?
What is the permission, or "yes" you gave in the past that you now want to retract?
What is the resentment you are still holding on to that the other person doesn't know about?
What is the promise you gave that you are now betraying?
What is it they or you did that you are still unwilling to forgive?
What price are you willing to pay for your refusal to forgive? How long are you prepared to continue paying that price?
What promise are you willing to make to the other person with no acknowledgement or expectation of return?
What gift could you give the other person that you continue to withhold? Why?
What are you prepared to do unconditionally, without any expectation of recognition or reciprocity by the other person?
[Based on work by Peter Block]
10 Initial Questions for Assessing Conflict
How and when did it begin? Who is impacted by it?
Is it chronic or repeating? Superficial or deep? ·
Is there a deeper problem? Is it connected to a system, or to other problems?
Is it localized or general, specific or widespread?
Why does it exist? What's been done to resolve it?
What's been done that supports its continuation?
How urgent is it to each person? What is the potential damage or cost of not resolving it?
How does it impact the vision, mission, objectives, values or goals of the group? Each participant?
What are the sources of resistance? Desire for change?
What kind of solution is required? Why?
Some Questions about Questions
Who wants to know? Who, exactly, is asking?
Why do you want to know? What is driving your curiosity?
Why do you care what the answer is?
Is the question dangerous enough?
What question does the other person most/least want to answer? What, in your life or theirs, could change based on the answer?
What is the meaning of the question, to you and to them?
What is the type and quality of energy contained in the question?
How much audacity and kindness are represented in the question?
Are you willing to ask the same question of yourself? 11 . How prepared are you to be shocked by the answer?
How might you turn the answer into a deeper question?
Questions on Problem Solving
You have solved thousands of problems and learned a great deal in your life. How open are you to the possibility that what you have learned is now irrelevant or wrong? How do you manage to stay in touch with your ignorance? How good are you at unlearning? How able are you to live in the present without focusing on past problems or future solutions?
You have learned countless ways to solve problems. Have you also learned how to not solve them? How willing are you to live with paradox, riddle, polarity and enigma? Do you understand that by solving your problems too quickly, you could cheat yourself out of learning from them?
You know how to make things happen. Do you know how to let them happen naturally and fluidly on their own? Do you know how to not intervene? Can you let things happen to you, or simply watch them as they happen? Are you addicted to controlling the outcome or the process?
You understand a great deal about what is. Do you also understand what is not, and what could be? Do you see not only what, but who is in front of you? Do you understand that what you understand includes the nature of your own understanding?
You have developed a number of strengths and achieved successes. Do you recognize that for every strength, there is a corresponding weakness? Do you understand that continued success leads to complacency, while failure leads to learning and change? Which is the success and which the failure?
What to Listen For in Asking Questions
Facts
Interpretations
Subjective Experiences
Modes of Perception
Emotions
Roles
Intentions
Expectations
Interests and Positions
Wishes and Desires
Dreams and Visions
Fears
Humiliations
Ego Defenses
Family Patterns
Self-Esteem
Defensiveness
Resistance
Denials
Confessions
Insults
Self-Doubts
Metaphors
Subconscious Meanings
Stereotypes
Prejudices
Openings to Dialogue
Offers to Negotiate
Requests for Acknowledgement
Need for Support
Universality
Uniqueness
Cries for Help
Desire for Forgiveness
© Kenneth Cloke