The Creative Solution: Dick’s Drop-Dead Questions

The Creative Solution Table of Contents

Summary:

This chapter presents “Dick’s Drop-Dead Questions,” five mediation strategies developed by Chip Rose. These questions, designed to overcome impasse, focus on clarifying client choices, assessing effectiveness, connecting positions to goals, analyzing consequences, and determining helpful mediator actions.

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Chapter 17. Dick’s Drop-Dead Questions

Nina Meierding and I once presented an advanced family mediation training at Pepperdine Law School high above cloistered beach houses of Malibu. In the course of the training, one of the participants–a no-nonsense, down to earth, “let’s-get-the-deal-done” mediator from Chicago named Dick asked us to give him our “drop dead” questions. “You know”, he said, “the ones you go to when you just have no idea what to do next.” So, as we worked throughout the three days of the training, we developed what we began calling,
“Dick’s Drop-Dead Questions.” In our last session, as we were summarizing the list of questions, I told Dick that this would make a great column and of course, I would dedicate it to him.

His question caused me to stop and consider the strategies I employ when I come to a place in the process where I suddenly go blank about what to do next. After some reflection, I am aware that whatever I end up doing in that circumstance, I sometimes do instinctively, sometimes intuitively, sometimes strategically, and sometimes by taking a flyer. The value of having a well-defined set of fall back questions, which I call break-glass-in-case-of-emergency questions, is self-evident. So here are the ones we came up with at our campus perch above the Pacific shore.

1. What do you see are your choices or options here?

This question serves several purposes. First, it is a clear indication to the clients that you are not about to rescue them from the present circumstances. Ironically, where you may be feeling anxious and insecure about your management of the process, the clients might well experience your capability as a mediator, impervious to attempts to be manipulated. The second purpose served by this question is the fact that any answer to the question will give you a meaningful direction to follow. For example, if the client says he or she has no clue what the choices are, you might respond, Would it be helpful if we identified those choices now?

2. What do you think would be the most effective thing we could do next?

Again, this question implicitly defines responsibility to the clients in a subtle but direct way. At the outset of the process, the clients generally give me a positive response to the inquiry, Is it your goal to be as effective as possible in the mediation process? The drop-dead question of this paragraph brings them back to this commitment and asks them to look internally for an effective next step. As with the first question, any response the client gives will suggest a direction, objective, goal or next step in the process.

3. How do you see that statement [or position, characterization, or accusation] moves you closer to your goals?
   
   Talk about passing the buck, this question is guaranteed winner. When one of the parties chooses to vent, make threats, or take unreasonable positions, the clients invariably focus on the content or tone of the statement or behavior. A direct question that asks the client to connect the position or conduct to the stated goals, generally makes it easy to redirect or reframe into a statement of more positive intent or direction.
   
4. What do you see as the consequences of that option?
   
   Helping the parties assess the consequences of the various options or choices they face, is one of my responsibilities as mediator. When defining the structure of the process at the outset, I ask the parties if they think that analyzing and assessing for consequences, is critical to making the best decisions. The answer is invariably affirmative. The question above ties into that structure and invites the client to reflect on the positive and negative consequences to a stated choice. The answer allows you to take measure of the client=s capacity for identifying and evaluating the consequences of their choices–information that is critical to the mediator.
   
5. What could I do at this point that would be most helpful to you right now?
   
   This question has several things going for it. First, it demonstrates care and concern while supporting or reinforcing the development of rapport between mediator and client. Second, it suggests the client focus on the context of the moment. What is happening at that moment? What relationship does that moment have with the rest of the process? What does the client need, at that moment, and if that need is met, how will that influence the next step in the process?

So there are five simple, effective, and elegant interventions which will invariably unstick you when you fear you may be stuck. There are as many of these types of strategic questions as there are creative and imaginative mediators. No suggestion is made here that these are the only five or necessarily the best five. Perhaps these examples will inspire you to identify your own drop-dead, break-glass-in-case-of-emergency questions, the existence of which gives you the confidence to stare uncertainty in the face and know you won’t blink first.

The Creative Solution Table of Contents

Chip Rose

Chip Rose is highly experienced divorce mediator previously based in Santa Cruz, California and recently moved to Bend, Oregon. Chip founded The Mediation Center in Santa Cruz in 1980 and is certified as a Specialist in Family Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. In a client-centered… MORE