The Low-Inference Note Guide
Low-inference note-taking is an essential skill for all coaches and leaders, at any level and in any industry.
Coaches rely on observational evidence to drive their decisions about what to prioritize with the person they are coaching. This can range from how a client facilitates a meeting or lesson to how they interact with a person in the hallway.
As a coach, it can be tempting to simply observe these experiences and synthesize your feedback into strengths and weaknesses. However, observing the performance of another person requires an objective lens. Noting performance objectively will allow coaches to do the following:
Draw appropriate conclusions about what is the highest leverage action for the person to take
Frame feedback objectively (rather than the opinion of the coach), reducing defensiveness and push back
Make connections between specific actions and the impact
Note-taking is an essential coach skill, which can be practiced and mastered. Being objective requires a lot of practice and a re-frame of thinking. Coaches need regular feedback on their notes. Improvement in note-taking means improvement in analysis, which means ultimately improvement in practice.
Questions for low-inference note-taking
What do you see and hear each person saying and doing?
What are the outcomes of lesson or experience?
What evidence can you gather of the outcomes?
What will each person know and be able to do at the end of this lesson?
Criteria for Success
Objective: Notes avoid commentary and value language like “good,” “bad,” “effective,” “ineffective,” “engaged,” or “disengaged.”
Evolutionary: Notes evolve over time as the observer narrows the focus to a specific action step.
Quantitative: Notes include specific quantitative data.
Specific: Notes include direct quotes, time stamps, written evidence, and other details.
Objective
It is easy to use value judgments or use loaded words that cannot be construed as objective in nature. There are a few words that coaches should avoid including good/bad, effective/ineffective, and engaged/disengaged. Engagement can mean a lot of different things to observers. Rather than describing participants as engaged, coaches can describe actions, including eyes on the speaker, note-taking, or raising hands. Even describing a person’s attitude or disposition can be considered subjective.
Cara Murphy was a manager at a mid-sized marketing company. She was scheduled to do a big presentation for a potential new client. Her boss, Andre Johnson, sat in on the final presentation to give her feedback. Andre started capturing his notes, which included:
1:00: Started the presentation. Introduced herself to the group. “My name is Cara Murphy and I am excited to share our branding mock up for you. We will also discuss potential revenue projections given this branding mock up.”
1:05: Moved to slide three. Described the branding colors and the reason for them. Rambled about the reason for the blue branding. Clients started to disengage.
1:10: “Do you have any questions about what has been said thus far?”
1:16: Got to the slide with the revenue projections. Seemed nervous to describe the numbers.
1:23: “You can see how going with our branding approach can be beneficial to your company. We hope that you consider signing on with us.”
Reflect: To what extent do Andre’s notes meet the “objective” criteria? Where do you see missteps?
Why is it essential to be objective? Imagine if Andre started his coaching conversation with Cara saying, “you rambled and they disengaged” or “you are uncomfortable talking about numbers.” These types of statements can put people on the defensive or create mistrust. What if Andre instead said, “You talked about the reason for the blue branding for over 2 minutes. As a result, 3 out of 6 clients started to check their phones and stopped taking notes when they did prior to that moment.” Using objective evidence helps frame the conversation in a different way.
Evolutionary
Creating evolutionary notes is arguably the most challenging of the criteria for success. This skill requires quick thinking, trend analysis, and a vision for the end goal all at the same time. There are times that some of the notes that coaches capture are ultimately note leveraged in the creation of an action step or coaching conversation at all, which can sometimes feel frustrating. “I did all of that work with my notes and I didn’t even use it!” one coach said to me. Yes. That happens sometimes.
If a trend becomes obvious, create a tally on the side. This tally can serve as concrete evidence to build a case for change around the action step. This strategy can be especially powerful for things like verbal ticks, equity of voice in a group setting, or interruptions between colleagues. One can also use this method to go deeper with quality of work.
Lara Jenks was an instructional coach at a high poverty school. A few years ago, I was coaching her on coaching (very meta - I know). I sat in on a coaching conversation that she had with a teacher. I was capturing my notes in my typical way: time, coach action, and teacher action. After the first three minutes, I began to notice a pattern. Every question Lara was asking was closed. Rather than asking the teacher, “To what extent have you see this strategy work in your classroom?” she would ask questions like, “did that work?” Of course, the teacher naturally responded with overall affirmative responses and Lara never got to hear about challenges or shades of gray. Lara left the conversation feeling really good but she was missing opportunities for collaboration, trust building, or unpacking mindsets.
By the end of the fifteen minute conversation, I had a concrete tally of the questions she posed. Out of the eight questions she asked (which is not enough by the way), only one of the questions allowed the teacher to be reflective. And that one question occurred fourteen minutes into the conversation. “What impact will this action step have?” Lara asked to wrap up the conversation. But for fourteen minutes, the teacher had very little opportunities to truly reflect. While I still scripted the questions she did pose, I no longer had to capture everything in the conversation. I had narrowed in on a pattern which allowed me to be much more present at observing other things like body language. If I had not narrowed in on this pattern, I easily could have missed other subtle things to pay attention to.
Reflect: What patterns are reoccuring? What can you narrow in on these patterns while note-taking?
Quantitative
Numbers can be really compelling in coaching conversations. Quantifying observational evidence is one of the main ways coaches build their case for change. Consider the following tips for quantifying low-inference notes.
For large group settings such as classrooms, speeches, or presentations:
Count the number of participants/students immediately so it is easier to come back and say “X out of X did this thing.”
Calculate approximate percentages (i.e. if there are 20 participants, do the initial calculation of benchmark percentages - 5 = 25%, 10 = 50%, 15 = 75%). This initial calculation will make it easier to present these percentages later, as appropriate.
Look for initial participation and get an approximate number, including hand raising, eye contact, and note-taking. This initial calculation will help to identify changes in participation later (i.e. “At first you had X number of people participating through note taking. After you did this thing, that increased to X number of people.”)
For one-on-one settings such as manager/employee or health care/patient conversations:
Identify an anticipated pattern of communication. Consider this as a continuum from more directive to more collaborative: Telling, Closed Questioning, Open Questioning, Nudging, Using silence. Tally communication while scripting the direct quotes until patterns emerge.
Keep close track of time, specifically who is speaking most. Having a timer out (but not visible to the participants) can be helpful.
Even if the observer does not quantify during the event, the coach can synthesize their other notes to quantify the experience.
Dr. Cunningham, an attending physician, was supervising resident Spencer Wilson in his rotation in dermatology. He was meeting with a patient struggling with eczema. Dr. Cunningham started by taking notes by scripting Spencer’s words and the patient’s reaction. Soon enough, Dr. Cunningham noticed a pattern. After every question the patient posed, Spencer would pause and say “um… well…” and then answer the question. Jackie started a tally. After a 6 minute interaction, Spencer had said “um” seventeen times and “well” thirteen times. The content of the conversation was solid but the “ums” and “wells” indicated to Jackie that Spencer was not confident in his responses to patient questions.
Reflect: How does quantifying support a coach’s case for change in the coaching conversation?
Specific
Specific low-inference notes means that the coach is capturing as much detail as possible that can be leveraged to best draw conclusions. Most commonly, this specific evidence is direct quotes but it can also include evidence of outcomes such as student work and notes from participants. A commonly overlooked piece of evidence is the use of participant interviews. Coaches can ask probing questions that will reveal things that may not be immediately obvious to the observer.
Some examples of interview questions that may be appropriate to ask participants include:
To what extent is what you are doing relevant to you?
Why do you think this person is asking you to do this?
What are you gaining from this experience?
Is this too hard, too easy, or just right?
What is one thing that you think this person can do better in their work/interactions with you?
While the coach may end up capturing evidence that will not be leveraged in the coaching conversation, sometimes patterns are revealed later on that may not be apparent to the observer in the moment.
Mary Branch was teaching her first graders a lesson on adding using a number a line. Her coach, Natalie Howard, was capturing her low-inference notes. She was scripting direct quotes, timing out portions of the lesson, and looking at student work. By the end of the observation, her hand hurt from all of the evidence that she had captured in her teacher action/student action note taking template. She narrowed in on the pacing on the lesson because students spent a lot of time on guided practice rather than independent practice. But as Natalie examined her notes, she recognized a pattern that she had not noticed before. Next to every student answer, she wrote “C” for correct. There was not a single student that got the question incorrect. Then, she looked at the content of the questions. All but one of the question were questions like, “what is 2 + 3?” rather than process questions like “what’s our first step?” Pacing was an issue because she was spending too much time on calculation questions, rather than teaching the process to master the objective.
If Natalie had not captured how students responded to each of the questions and the content of the questions, she would have drawn the incorrect conclusion about where to begin.
Reflect: What information would be most relevant to collect when observing the performance of another? How does getting specific allow you to draw better conclusions about action steps?
Key Idea: Get specific. Even if you don’t use the evidence in your coaching conversation, you can draw better conclusions about correlation.
Getting Started
The typical starting place for low-inference notes involves the following:
Timestamps: When did the event, quote, or situation occur? Be as precise as possible.
Actions (including words) of the client or teacher: What did he/she say? What were his/her actions?
Impact of the actions: What did the learner say or do as a result of the actions?
The goal of this type of set up is to help client understand the impact of their actions through the coaching conversation. The more that the person can be reflective about their actions and resulting impact, the more the action steps will stick.
Click here for a basic template that you can use or adapt.