Mediation is sometimes referred to as “the art of asking questions.” One of my mediation teachers, David Matz, described this process as similar to fishing – we cast our questions on the waters of the conflict, and sometimes we catch a fish (i.e., a really useful answer)!

Our goal in asking questions is to understand people’s stories, discern their underlying interests, and explore the feasibility of various settlement options. Curiosity is an essential trait for mediators.

For negotiators, asking questions is equally important, even when there is no mediator present. The best negotiators ask lots of questions – and here are two stories that illustrate the point:

First Story: Many years ago, I served as a negotiation teacher for the first-year associates at my old law firm, Hill & Barlow. Each year, I gave the associates the same negotiation exercise – a case called “Sally Soprano,” one of the most popular negotiation exercises published by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. It’s a scorable exercise in which the parties are negotiating a contract for the services of an opera singer. After the exercise is over, the associates and I calculated who got the best and worst deals for the opera singer, and explored the reasons why.

One of the most important parts of this exercise was the next step, in which I invited two senior partners who had never seen the “Sally Soprano” exercise to do the negotiation in front of the associates. Each year I got to see good negotiators, but the very best result ever was by a senior partner named Charles Dougherty, who got an exceptionally favorable outcome for the opera singer in a rather surprising way. He did not pound the table, make excessive demands, or berate the other side for their stinginess. Instead, he calmly asked a series of questions about the opera company and its interests and concerns. He asked what the opera company had paid other performers and what their projected finances were for this particular opera. He asked about their alternatives to an agreement with his client, Sally Soprano.

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