Weeknotes #73: The Möbius Strip of Change
You are reading Coaching Weeknotes by Roxana Bacian Coaching: explorations at the intersection of coaching, inner and organisational development. These week notes are multiply authored - arrived at in conversation with many:
Have you heard of the Möbius strip? ‘Wikipedia describes it as a surface that can be formed by attaching the ends of a strip of paper together with a half-twist. The Möbius strip is a non-orientable surface, meaning that within it one cannot consistently distinguish clockwise from counterclockwise turns. Every non-orientable surface contains a Möbius strip.’
I first heard about it through Parker J Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak, who uses it to make a point about the inextricable entanglement of our inner and our outer worlds, an entanglement which comes to shape who we are and the worlds we create. He writes: ‘Whatever is inside of us continually flows outward, helping to form or deform the world — depending on what we send out. Whatever is outside us continually flows inward, helping to form or deform us — depending on how we take it in.’
This entire newsletter speaks to this connection - ‘explorations at the intersection of inner growth, personal development and organisational change-work’. I’m honing in on this now because this week I’ve been reflecting on what differentiates me as a coach - and one of the main points I arrived at was this bridging of experience and knowledge of change mangement from an inner and outer perspective: previously embedding change in public services as a designer + psychological understanding and application of behaviour change as a psychotherapy client throughout the last 8.5 years.
In the next few months I’ll be focusing on writing up a longer article on how being a client of therapy has shaped who I am as a coach, reflecting specifically on the attitudes, orientations and methods that I found inspiration in and that have solidified my coaching practice and brought benefits to teams and leaders alike.
In thinking about the skills that differentiate me, I came to also thinkg about the core guiding question that further defines who I am as a coach - this is a nod to the values I’m led by and also to what gives me purpose in doing this type of work: Who do we need to become, as leaders and teams, to build the type of organisations that will shape a better tomorrow?
What do you think? What is your USP as a coach? And what is your guiding question?
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Complimentary coaching offer:
With one month to go until we break off for Christmas, I’m offering complimentary 30min coaching calls. These are useful for senior teams (3-6 ppl) and leaders in small to medium organisations, who are facing complex change and decision-making. Find out more about my coaching approach here and coaching style here. Watch a video of myself introducing this offer:
Recent gorgeous finds:
❤️ Stephen Colbert interview with Anderson Cooper on Grief - Absolute gem for anyone navigating waves of grief;
🎧 Ana Melikian’s podcast episode with Rutherford Pascal on Preparation, Intentionality and Differentiation in an AI World - For anyone looking to re-shape their role and contribution as AI becomes an integral part of our working lives.
Thank you for reading as always.
See you next week,
Roxana
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Roxana Bacian Coaching ACC (she/her)
Executive Coaching for Teams & Leaders
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