Writing notes and Paying Generative Attention are not compatible.

By Tim Williams

As many will know, ‘Attention’ is one of Nancy Kline’s 10 components of a Thinking Environment.  People need our attention in order to think at their best about their health and indeed, anything else.  There is a cost to ‘paying’ attention (which is why we have to pay it) and one of those is that you can’t do something else while you’re doing it well. That something else is an interruption to that person’s thinking and if we knew this was an act of sabotage, what would we do instead?

I know when I was working as a GP, I assumed it saved time to tip tap on the keyboard as the person was sharing their story, but as a patient, I find it irritating.  My notes were better, more comprehensive (with less spelling errors), when I typed them, once the consultation was concluded – and it took the same total time. Coaches have also told me that they think they needed to keep in-the-moment notes, in case they forget some vital detail, that would need to be summarised back at a later point and that they had a ‘really poor memory’. 

We can of course do our best to do both – signposting to the client that we will be making some notes as we go.  This is better than nothing and likely accepted by the client as what ‘just needs to happen’.  However, it won’t be anywhere near as good as giving our full attention, which would ignite their thinking, propelling them to think further than they thought possible.

My own experience of this, is that when you do really pay attention, the important information sticks, or comes up repeatedly (which you also notice) and the rest (even the bits you thought might be relevant) fall away.  So, if you knew that it was more important to pay exquisite attention, than record what was said, how might you coach? If you knew that by truly paying attention, the most relevant information would be remembered, what might you be released to do instead?

I have been on journey with this myself and like all habits, it can be challenging to break.  What helps is when you have repeated experiences of writing up a session summary and noticing that everything that was necessary to capture is there.  But don’t take my word for it, give it a go, with one client, for one session and see for yourself.