Merging Ethiopian Wise-Counsel Mediation and Facilitative ...

Self-revelation"I'm in a hurryand impatient."Appeal"Start driving.""The traffic lightis green."FactualThe traffic light hasswitched to green.Relationship"I am the boss and you are thedriver. I can tell you what to doand what not to do."You can use the following example:Addis and Ethiopia are sitting in a car; Addis is driving. While they waitat an intersection, the traffic light changes from red to green.Ethiopia: “The traffic light is green.”Addis: “Don’t be so impatient!”…and they start arguing. What went wrong?When you apply the anatomy-of-a-message frame, you can identifyfour sides of the statement, “The traffic light is green.”The factual content of the message is that the traffic light is now green.Ethiopia sends a appeal to Addis to start driving. Ethiopia tells somethingabout her inner state (self-revelation): she is impatient and in ahurry. Her message gives a clue to the relationship between Ethiopiaand Addis: she is the boss and he is the driver. She can tell him what todo and what not to do.Maybe Ethiopia did not mean to be insulting. Disagreementcan happen to anybody, because different people are sensitive to thedifferent pieces of information encoded in a message. This can be acause for misunderstandings and conflict. The following exercise willhelp the participants apply the Four Sides model while giving them afeeling for the complexity of communication.Mediation Training Toolbox59