Clean Questions
and a Clean Set-up
| Clean
Language, and Clean Questions in particular, offer a very different
way of listening to what people say and exploring the depth, breadth,
width and profundity of even the simplest words, the shortest of
phrases, the most fleeting gesture, the gentlest sigh, the hint of a smile, the pain of a laugh... If you've never heard or even read about it - and maybe even if you have! - Clean Language can seem very strange. |
| The three dots ... in the spaces below represent the words or phrases selected by the questioner (you?) from the answers given. Only those i.e. some or all of the questionee's words, and the words below, should be uttered by the questioner (you?)
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| IDENTIFYING ATTRIBUTES And what kind of ... is ...? And is there anything else about…? |
| MOVING TIME BACKWARD And what happens just before …? And where could that … come from? |
| MOVING TIME FORWARD And what would you like to have happen? And what happens next? And then what happens? |
| LOCATING IN SPACE And where is…? And where abouts is …? |
| A ‘Clean’ Set Up |
| 1/ For this session[1] to be really useful for you, it will need to be like what? 1a/ All or some of their answer X And X and what kind of X is that X? And is there anything else about X? |
| 2/ For it to be like X, you will need to be like what? 2a/ All or some of their answer Y And Y and what kind of Y? And is there anything else about Y? |
| 3/ In order for you to be like Y and for the session to be like X, I would need to be like what to support you? 3a/ All or some of their answer Z And Z and what kind of Z? Is there anything else about Z? |
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[1] James Lawley & Penny Tompkins Metaphors in Mind – Transformation Through Symbolic Modelling
[1] The Clean Set-up is an excellent start for any
encounters where people have to work together,
share ideas, make decisions,
resolve problems, etc.