My/Mine, Our/Ours – A Reflection on Pronouns

With this column, I dive into the raging debate on pronouns. No, not that debate – I mean the my/mine, our/ours dispute.  

Quite some time ago I served in the role of chief financial officer for an emerging tech company, one in which our CEO and I both reported to an outside board of directors. 

On one occasion, I entered the room for a meeting with the representatives of a key customer. I hadn’t met these individuals before so when the time came to tell them who I was, the CEO introduced me by saying, “This is my CFO.”  That was odd, I thought, I always considered myself the company’s CFO, not his. I bristled a bit but let it drop and forgot about it.

Until a few days later. In a gathering of another group of people, he did it again. As I entered the room he stood up a little straighter and said, “Let me introduce you to my CFO.” Not our CFO. Not the organization’s CFO. Not the company’s CFO.  Not the board’s CFO. His CFO.

In practice we see varying versions of this; people being referenced by their so-called superiors as my finishing supervisor, or my sales director or my quality manager. We often find this habit manifesting itself in reference to groups of people: “my paint department,” “my plating division,” “my maintenance team” and so on.

Never one to let workplace irritation go unchecked, I waited until after the second meeting in which our CEO had introduced me in the way that he did and asked him privately why he thought it appropriate to introduce me as his CEO.

“What’s the big deal?” he responded a bit arrogantly. 

“I don’t know,” I countered, “I would just prefer you refer to me as a member of the team or the company’s CFO, not yours”. I’m not your anything, I thought to myself.

Perhaps I should have been better prepared to answer his question, but here’s the big deal. My English teacher called “my” and “mine” possessive pronouns for a reason and when we use them in reference to others, we imply subconscious ownership,  possession or superiority. When we choose these pronouns, two things happen.

First, likely inadvertently, we send the message to the person we referenced in this fashion that they are inferior, if only slightly, to us. In the smallest and most unintentional of ways, we belittle them and steal a little bit of their dignity. Who among us wants to feel subservient to others?

Second, and again perhaps unintentionally, we project ourselves as condescending, as if trying to elevate our own status and establishing superiority at the expense of another’s dignity. 

Like so many imperfections in personality, this one projects itself in exactly the opposite way in which it may have been intended. For instance, when our CEO introduced me as his CFO, he subconsciously (or maybe even purposely) sent the message to the others in the meeting that he had a need for them to know that he believed himself to be superior, at least in rank, to me. Contrary to his intention, his behavior left some in the meeting, myself included, wondering why he felt so insecure in his own skin that he had to make it a point to project superiority over others.

The antidote is to choose different pronouns or to eliminate the possessive pronouns altogether. When referring to our team members and those we lead, replace “my/mine” with “our/ours” or “the”.

What sounds less condescending, “my CFO” or “our CFO”?  “My line operator” or “one of our valued line operators”?  “My quality manager” or “the company’s quality manager”? “My director of sales” or “ABC Company’s director of sales”?  Exactly.

Replace “my company” with “our company”. Substitute “my operations team” with “the operations team”. Swap “my ecoat division” in favor of “the ecoat team,” etc.

The result will be team members who don’t feel inferior, are more empowered and more valued, and leaders who appear more collaborative and less condescending and insecure. What organization couldn’t benefit from these? I know our company would.