Figure: 17.1.
CREDIT: O’SULLIVAN SOLUTIONS
AFTER THE UNDERLYING INTERESTS OF PARTIES have been reached, and when there is no new information to be gained by continuing the conversation, the mediator asks Future Focus questions to move parties out of their cycle of conflict and facilitate their cognitive thinking. This should lead to the identification of appropriate options and solutions. To ask these questions before this has happened might result in one or both parties blocking progress, as they would feel that they had not been heard and understood effectively and that the mediator was forcing them to a solution before they were ready.
If you ask a question that is problem focused, you may get responses about the problem accompanied by negative emotions regarding the past. If you instead ask an effective S4: Future Focus question, then the response will include the opportunities and possibilities for the future with accompanying positive emotions. To do this, ask a party to consider a world in which the problem has been solved. Then use Future Focus questions to generate connections with a possible future perspective that will expand possibilities. These questions paint a possible hypothetical, conditional or consequential picture on which parties can reflect. They change the state of mind of a party and bring them to a place where they can look at their conflict differently, outside their current paradigm.
As covered in Chapter 3, our brains are hardwired to be more sensitive to pain than to reward, and brain research reveals that focusing on problems or negative behavior reinforces those problems and their linked behaviors. Staying in the past any longer than is appropriate may unnecessarily activate the avoid-threat reflex and keep the parties on the treadmill of blame and attack. But when mediators concentrate on asking questions that take the awareness and focus off the negative past and connect instead with future potential solutions, new neural pathways and thinking patterns are developed in the brain. Asking a question by connecting to a future perspective lessens the possibility of the activation of a party’s amygdala, resulting in their increased ability to think cognitively. When safety and certainty about the future seem more possible, parties are more open to agreeing a way forward.
Brain research reveals that focusing on problems or negative behavior just reinforces those problems and behaviors. Therefore, the best coaching strategies focus on the present and future solutions. This requires the development of new neural pathways in the brain and learning new thinking patterns.
— Geoffrey Schwartz, Research Psychiatrist
at UCLA School of Medicine46
Asking Future Focus questions is a way in which to change a party’s past negative narratives to a more positive narrative. Once this is achieved, their avoid-threat reflex will reduce and their approach-reward reflex will start to activate. Asking Future Focus questions is a powerful way of creating new paradigms for parties that result in possibilities for action and solution.
When parties have vented their emotions, when underlying interests have been identified for both of them, and when there is no further new information or insight to be gained by continuing to discuss the past, then using Future Focus questions will bring parties to a more constructive state.
These questions are used:
✓ When parties are unable to see outside their conflict and move from the merry-go-round of blame and counter-blame to a new narrative, with possibilities for the future
✓ To identify the learning from the past and use it to reach agreement for the future
✓ To facilitate regret by asking parties what they would do differently if they could go back to the conflict with the insight they have now gained
✓ To safely explore and reality test any potential implications and outcomes from possible decisions or agreements
✓ When a party is hesitant to make an offer unless they know the other party will reciprocate
✓ If a party is threatening to leave the mediation process and a mediator needs to ask reality-testing questions
The value of Future Focus questions is that they move parties to a positive state where they can think cognitively and imagine a future without the problems that brought them to mediation. As parties see possibilities beginning to emerge during this future-focused conversation, they become more open to negotiating more collaboratively with each other.
While it is important to go to the past to find out about the parties’ issues, needs and underlying interests and the impact the conflict has had on them, this information then needs to be used as a box of experiences that can be developed as a platform to get to an imagined safer future.
Example:
■ If Tom had handled that differently, how would that have been for you?
■ You both mentioned that the past was difficult; what do each of you need to ensure that the future is less stressful?
■ What learning could be used from this to create a future that is acceptable to both of you?
If parties are not supported to look toward the future after they have vented their thoughts and emotions, then the conversation between them may go around in circles as they repeatedly use the same negative narrative pattern to describe their position. Initially, parties may slip into their old narrative of blame, so a question that has a future focus needs to be managed well by a mediator and kept positive and focused only on a future narrative.
Example:
Mediator signposting:
I would like to ask each of you some questions, and I know I am being a little directive, but it would be useful if you would keep your responses in the positive. I will give you plenty of time to say anything else that you may need to say afterwards if you consider it necessary.
Mediator asking the lead-in question:
Tom, if this was working well, what would it look like for both of you? I will ask Karen the same question in a moment.
Party:
Well, she will need to never do that again! And…
Mediator:
Tom, may I please come in here for a moment. I would like if you would keep your responses positive. If you wish to add any other concerns, I will give you plenty of time to voice them in a moment. Just for now, if this was working well, what would it look like for both of you?
Future Focus questions are developed by connecting parties with a future possible perspective that may be hypothetical, conditional or consequential.
1. Future Focus hypothetical questions ask a party to imagine a future that is working well.
2. Future Focus conditional questions ask a party what they would do if certain stated conditions were in place.
3. Future Focus consequential questions ask a party about potential outcomes from the decisions they may make.
Future Focus questions usually contain the word if and may be prefixed as follows:
If…
What if…?
What could happen if…?
What might happen if…?
As the parties become more comfortable about the prospect that the conflict will be resolved, then the mediator can make the above question even more powerful by changing the word at the start of the Future Focus question from If to When.
Examples:
Hypothetical Future Focus question:
I heard you saying that what happened was a concern for you, and you said that the impact weighed heavily on you. If the future was looking good what might it feel like? What might it look like?
Conditional Future Focus question:
If everything was to work well for you, and if you were happy with the outcome, what are the things that could have enabled this to happen? What would you have offered to each other about the future? If you were each to receive what you needed from the other, what might you offer in return?
Consequential Future Focus question:
What could be the consequences of this decision?
What might be the advantages/disadvantages of this decision?
To build this series of questions, first ask the parties to envisage a future without the problems of the past, then ask questions that support them to link that future with their learning from the experiences of this conflict. Then facilitate the parties to build a strategy to get to that imagined future, and finally reality test the options with them before they reach agreement.
Examples:
Stage 1: Create a Vision of the Future
Ask parties to reflect on what a future without the problems of the past would look like:
■ If this was working well, how could it look?
■ If you were supporting each other to work toward a better future, what could you have done?
■ What could need to be in place?
■ If this was successful, what things could you have agreed with each other?
Stage 2: Link the Past with the Future
Ask parties what they had learned from what had happened in the past that could inform their future agreement:
■ If you were to relive that event again with the knowledge that you have now, what might you have done differently?
■ What would you have liked the other party to have done differently?
■ If that had happened, what would it have been like?
Stage 3: Develop a Strategy for the Future
Ask parties to develop a strategy for how they would ensure that this designed and painted future could become an outcome:
■ What worked well in the past that could help you both in the future?
■ How could you take this into the future?
■ If you were to take small steps toward agreement, what might these steps be?
■ If that part was solved, what could that give you? What other areas could you attempt to solve?
■ If you were supporting each other to work toward a better future, what could each of you do?
■ What are all the options that could be considered to ensure that a positive outcome is achieved?
Stage 4: Reality Test the Options
Ask parties what need to be the criteria for testing the workability of any options for solutions, and then test all the options proposed against the criteria set by the parties:
■ Let’s look at each of the options and see how they might work.
■ What are the advantages/disadvantages of each of the options?
■ What might be the challenges and how might you manage them?
■ What undertakings do you need to give to each other?
■ If it was two months from now and you had both kept to the agreement, and if you had started to build up some trust with each other, where would you be on a scale of 0 to 10 regarding being able to work with each other effectively? With 10 indicating “very well.”
■ What are all the things you would have done to have made that ranking result possible?
Stage 5: Agree on the Future
■ What are all the options that will meet your needs and interests?
■ What agreements could be put in place?
Future Focus conditional questions are built around what a party might do if certain conditions were in place. Questions that use the conditional tense rather than the present tense will often invite greater reflective speculation, which will help shift the thinking of the parties regarding their future options. This gives the parties an opportunity to see what options might be possible if either of them made a different decision or employed different behavior in the future.
The process of asking conditional questions enables each party to see that the other party could shift their position if certain conditions pertained. It gives parties a safe view of the future before they actually make any commitment.
Examples:
Focusing on the past to move toward the future:
■ If you understood each other, what could happen?
■ If you both really listened to each other, what would you like to know or understand?
■ If you felt that Karen was really listening to you, what might she understand? What would you like her to know or to understand?
■ If you were to begin to understand each other’s perspective, what could start to happen next?
■ Karen, Tom has just said that if he could go back to that event again, he would do things differently. If he had done this in a way that was OK with you, how might you have reacted?
■ What might you have done? If Karen had done that, Tom, how might you have responded?
■ If you had both changed your responses to each other at that time, how could this have been for both of you?
Focusing on the future:
■ If this were to happen again, what could each of you do so that the outcome could be more positive?
■ If you were to offer this, Tom, what would you need Karen to offer you?
■ If Tom was to offer this to you, is there anything you could offer him in return, Karen?
■ If your resolution of this conflict was completely guaranteed, what steps could each of you take right now?
Future Focused consequential questions allow the parties to step back from the conflict and explore the potential implications and outcomes from any possible decisions or actions that they are considering.
Examples:
General Future Focus questions and consequences:
■ If this happened, what could this mean? What could happen then?
■ How could others react to this?
■ Would this be a reaction that you would want?
■ If you do not wish for this to happen, what action could you take that could give you the response that you would prefer?
Using a Journey of Inference flow for Future Focus consequential questions:
■ If you do that, what could happen?
■ What meaning could others take from it?
■ What could others assume might happen?
■ What conclusions or judgments could they come to?
■ How could others react to it?
■ If this was done to you, what would you take it to mean? What would you assume? What might you conclude? And then what might you do?
If a party is not ready to explore and tease out possible options for solution, then the mediator needs to take it as a sign that the party may not feel that they have been heard sufficiently. There may still be some unexplored or unnamed issues and underlying interests, and it is wise to check this as a first move.
After exploring this with the party, it may be time to ask what are known as BATNA, WATNA and MLATNA questions to facilitate the breaking of this impasse. These questions are usually used as a negotiating technique but can be adapted to mediation also.
■ BATNA means the Best Alternative to a Negotiated (Mediated) Agreement
■ WATNA means the Worst Alternative to a Negotiated (Mediated) Agreement
■ MLATNA means the Most Likely Alternative to a Negotiated (Mediated) Agreement
These questions help a party to become more grounded in reality by facilitating the parties to tease out the potential consequences from any decisions on which parties are reflecting. By thinking through the responses to these questions, mediation parties will understand whether a mediated solution will meet their needs, in comparison to any alternative options.
If a party decides to stay in mediation, this discussion will enable them to clarify their desired outcomes and engage positively in the mediation process from that point onward. Alternatively, asking these questions may lead participants to reach an informed decision about leaving the mediation process. BATNA, WATNA and MLATNA questions are best asked in separate private meetings.
Examples of BATNA, WATNA and MLATNA questions:
The negotiation questions using BATNA, WATNA and MLATNA are consequential questions:
■ If you are unable to negotiate a meaningful agreement through mediation, what are all your alternatives?
■ What is the best likely alternative to a mediated agreement, if you fail to settle?
■ What is the worst likely alternative to a mediated agreement, if you fail to settle?
■ What is the most likely alternative to a mediated agreement, if you fail to settle?
■ What is your conclusion about the boundaries of your situation?
Setting criteria for a decision-making analysis:
■ What are the criteria against which you will assess and measure your decision? (Criteria are conditions that any acceptable solution to the problem must meet.)
■ How would your BATNA, WATNA or the MLATNA meet these criteria?
■ What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of your BATNA, WATNA or MLATNA alternatives?
■ What is important to you and what is important to the other party?
■ What is important to you and what is not important to the other party?
■ What is not important to you, but may be important to the other party?
■ What might you lose? What might you gain?
■ How does what you may lose compare to what you may gain? What might be the net effect?
■ What else could make a difference to your decision?
Using BATNA, WATNA and MLATNA questions with
S4: Other People questions
The same flow of questions can be used to ask the party to surmise the hypothetical likely alternatives open to them and open to the other party. This will further focus them on the boundaries around their decision on whether to stay in the mediation process or leave it.
Example:
■ If you were looking down at yourself during this discussion, from the position of a balcony, what would you see? What would you advise yourself to do?
■ If a third party that you admire was in that balcony looking down at you, what would they see? What might they advise you to do?
These same Future Focus questions can be used to ask a party to surmise the hypothetical likely alternatives open to the other party. This helps focus the minds of a party who may be thinking from an emotional perspective and may not be seeing the realities of the situation.
