Peacebuilding &conflict transformation A ... - Peaceworkafrica

“Would you find it useful to talk about this and take some ideas from bothgroups about what could be done to address this problem?”In this way Ms. Mo used summary to focus the group’s attention on a particularissue, and moved skilfully from her summary to invite the group tooffer ideas for resolving the problem.10.2 Questioning techniquesThe second most important skill for anyone practicing active listening or functioningas a third party in a conflict situation is that of being able to ask questions. Thereare two main different types of questions: closed and open.Closed questions elicit either a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response or request specific information,e.g.: “Did it rain yesterday?”, “Did you work last week?”, “Do you like me?”, “Areyou angry?”, “Are you sad?”, “Did you close at 6pm?”, “What time did youarrive in the office today?”Open questions open the way to gathering information, exploring ideas and opinions.Formulate the question in a way that it cannot be answered by ‘yes’ or ‘no’.The words used should express empathic interest to support, encourage andreassure the speaker to open up and feel safe e.g.:▶ “What happened?”,▶ “How does it work?”,▶ “How can we solve this problem?”,▶ “That sounds as though it was very good to start like…. Can you tell memore about?”,▶ “What happened after that…?”Use who, what, when, where and how questions, but be careful or avoid why andwhy-not questions as they tend to call for reasons and justification of actions, ratherthan information.There are different types of questions and techniques that are useful for delvingdeeper into a topic. If used appropriately the dialogue develops like peeling awaythe layers of an onion with the goal being to move towards the onion’s centre. In thisway, the listener receives more information, moves closer to the reasons behindsomething or gains as much understanding as possible. The kinds of techniquesused most are described in the following section.82 I I . C O M M U N I C AT I O N