Merging Ethiopian Wise-Counsel Mediation and Facilitative ...

III.3.5 How to Facilitate the Shift from Positions to Interests and Needs with Grounding QuestionsReading the set of grounding questions, it seems to be an easy task to use and apply them, but in reality it isoften more complicated and it needs a very skilled mediator to properly formulate and pose these questions.Therefore conduct the following exercise with the participants.To increase participants' understanding of grounding questions and to apply them in practice.30 minutes (including evaluation).Two trainers, two trainees, three chairs, an item that can serve as a "remote control", two pin-boards, one flipchart with an Onion Modeland a Mediation Tree-House drawing, a second flipchart, markers.Step 1: Arrange the participants in a circle. Use two pin-boards or the wall of the room for the picture of the Mediation Tree Houseand the Onion Model. Role-play a participatory mediation session using the "interactive movie technique" 27 as follows: One of thetrainers will be the mediator and the other trainer will facilitate—or act as a movie director showing the mediation session as part ofa movie to the audience (the participants). During the "screening"”of the mediation session, the facilitator/director will reflect with theparticipants about the changes in the conflicting parties' behaviour and on the techniques the mediator is using. The director will invitethe participants to use the "remote control" to intervene in the "movie" and steer the mediator's actions.Use the Mango Tree Conflict as case to mediate or any other case the participants are well familiar with. Start the sequence when theconflict is already at an escalated point and the parties are on the top of the Mediation Tree House, that is, the conflicting parties areonly talking about their positions when the mediator arrives at the scene.Step 2: As director, arrange the seats in mediation position (triangle) and invite the mediator and two of the participants to play theconflicting parties. All are sitting down. Give a short introduction to the case and announce that the mediator will now bring the partiesfrom the top of the mediation tree house down to common ground by using grounding questions.Step 3: The mediator asks the conflicting parties to talk about the conflict. They express their positions. Using grounding questions, themediator tries to identify the parties' interests and needs.Step 4: After a while, intervene as the director and stop the scene. Ask the audience for their observations with regard to the possiblechanging behaviour of the conflicting parties and especially how the mediator achieved this change in behaviour.27 This exercise is based on general role-play setups and was adopted in this way by Maike van Ueuem (2012).Mediation Training Toolbox39