Summaries of Coaching Notes: Goals, Progress, Successes

What other ways do coaching notes get used?  During the coaching relationship, coaching notes provide the records from which a coach can extract the defined goals, the progress, and the successes of the client.  These summaries are a useful tool as a checkpoint with clients.

• On an ongoing basis the notes provide the client with an overview and list of their chosen action steps, plus help the coach prepare each session.

• For example, when a coaching client has achieved a number of goals, reflecting on initial goals and outcomes is acknowledging their progress and success. This is a confidence builder, a measure of ROI, and often sparks new insights and new goals.

• When a coaching relationship is complete, because most coaches only retain notes for six to twelve months, the coach can extract a one-page summary from the coaching notes and summaries for use if or when the client comes back for more coaching.

• If the coach and client are co-creating a report for a sponsor, the coaching notes provide a record of what has been accomplished to make the task easier.

Coaching notes maximize the outcomes of coaching sessions and support forward progress when using them to summarize the goals, progress, and successes for review.