They were developed by the Maori PTSD psychotherapist David Grove in the 1970s and 1980s. David noticed that when his interactions with clients were free from his prescriptions, advice, and interpretations, the clients could think through their “own stuff”’ and create connections in their minds that allowed them to heal more readily. David went on to develop other methods such as Emergent Knowledge and Clean Space, and sadly died in 2008. In turn, Caitlin Walker of Liverpool, England, took these questions to groups and organizations, calling it Systemic Modelling, or “Clean Language for Teams”. This is the area of coaching I am most interested in with Clean Language. An example of this type of application is the 'Motivation in a Moment' process, which was devised by UK-based practitioners Marian Way, Phil Swallow, and Wendy Sullivan, and taught to 1600 leaders of weight management clubs. When they first hear Clean Language questions being asked, lots of people worry about the fact that the questions do not sound grammatically correct. It’s true, they don’t. They can sound quite odd at first. But the funny thing is that if you are on the receiving end of the questions, they seem to make perfect sense.

Wilson, C. (2017). The Work and Life of David Grove: Clean Language and Emergent Knowledge. Troubador Publishing Ltd. Clean language aims to support clients in discovering and developing their own symbols and metaphors, rather than the therapist/coach/interviewer suggesting or contributing their own framing of a topic. In other words, instead of "supporting" the client by offering them ready-made metaphors, when the counselor senses that a metaphor would be useful or that a metaphor is conspicuously absent, the counselor asks the client, "And that's like what?" The client is invited to invent their own metaphor. If you’re familiar with the Pareto Principle (often called the 80/20 rule), you’ll know that it’s common for 20% of the effort in a thing to give us 80% of the value. The challenge is to identify which 20% we should focus on. With clean language, the first two questions consistently appear to be that 20%. Using just those two questions, we can get significant value out of clean language without diving into the rest. So we’ll spend more time with those. Clean Language combines four elements of communication: syntax, wording of questions, vocal qualities, and non-verbal behaviour. These elements are described below. Syntax Clean Language is a very modern methodology. Its aims are rooted in helping people - not exploiting or manipulating people.These are some of the most frequently used, and important, questions in Clean Language, and yet they are so simple. It is putting them together with the client’s own words that makes them so powerful. Another example of a metaphor is: ‘This place is a pigsty!’ This isn’t really the case, the expression simply means it’s very messy.

a b Grove, David J. & Panzer, Basil I. (1989) Resolving Traumatic Memories: Metaphors and Symbols in Psychotherapy. Irvington, New York ISBN 0829024077 Philip Harland (2009). The Power of Six: A Six Part Guide to Self Knowledge. Wayfinder Press. ISBN 978-0-9561607-0-6. OCLC 980603921. Wikidata Q113559904. Author, trainer and consultant Judy Rees is an expert in the questioning and listening technique Clean Language, and the co-author (with Wendy Sullivan) of Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds,a best-selling book on the subject.It can be difficult to identify metaphors at first, because they are frequently used and we don’t think twice about them. That’s why active listening is so important. You may have noticed that some of the questions have both an X and a Y in them and that’s when we’re comparing two different metaphors.

As we go along, you will build on these basic skills by learning how to use Clean Language to work with clients’ desired outcomes. You will learn how to: steer their attention towards what they want; help them navigate their ‘metaphor landscapeIn general, speaking slower and with emphasis on the metaphor will give better results. Try varying your pacing and emphasis and see what works best for you. Everyones style is different and so not everyone will get the same results for any given approach. Videos Chiou: The best place to find out what’s going on globally in the intersection between Agile and Clean Language is a Facebook group called Clean Language and Agile. You’ll be able to interact with other coaches and Scrum Masters to learn about their experiments and successes using Clean Language in their coaching and teams. I highly recommend the book From Contempt to Curiosity, Creating the Conditions for Teams to Collaborate, by Caitlin Walker. You can also use any search engine to find out more. About the Interviewee A former journalist and media executive, Judy has been working with Clean Language since2005 and has trained people from all over the world in its use.