Coaching Your Inner Team

Why Your Pronouns Are the Map

We talk about ourselves as if we were one person, but most of us know the experience of "a part of me wants this, another part wants that." David Grove, the developer of Clean Language, spent years investigating exactly this. He noticed that when people describe their dreams, desires, problems and fears, they shift between pronouns (I, me, you, myself) almost without noticing, and that each pronoun carries a different relationship to the outcome they're chasing. Grove called this territory pronoun scape.

In this 90-minute session, Dr Caitlin Walker, supported by Michael Oskam and Pascal Clarson, will guide you through your own.

You'll:

• Pick a real outcome you want to think through
• Notice the different pronouns you use, and build a metaphor for each one
• Map how each of those "inner team members" relates to the outcome
• Explore how they might start working together, rather than pulling in different directions

This is more than an exercise in self-observation. Understanding your pronoun scapes gives you a concrete, felt sense of where the resistance or conflict in a change actually sits — often the difference between insight that stays theoretical and insight that produces real movement.

The session is open to anyone curious about how their own system works; no change work background required. Whether you're leading a team, wrestling with a decision, or trying to understand what's blocking sustainable action, this gives you a practical way in — and a method you can keep using afterwards.

Bring an outcome in mind, some large paper and coloured pens. You'll leave with a working metaphor for your own inner team.