AI in practice
Prepare for your next coaching session
Revisit what the client left open and arrive ready to listen, with possibilities rather than a fixed agenda.
AI can help you revisit previous notes without turning them into a fixed plan for the next conversation. Use only material covered by your agreed data arrangements, and begin by writing down what you remember and what you are curious about.
Step 1: Bring together the relevant material
You may need only the most recent summary and a question the client wanted to return to. More history is not automatically more useful. Ask the AI to separate what the client explicitly said from patterns it is interpreting.
Example instruction: “Help me prepare for the next session using these notes. Identify questions the client left open and actions they explicitly chose. Refer to the wording or session that supports each point. Separately, suggest up to three possible threads to hold in mind, clearly labelled as your interpretations. Do not infer progress since the last session or decide the client’s agenda.”
Step 2: Choose what to carry into the room
Check the response against the notes and your own thinking. Which thread might matter? Which is mainly your interest? What might have changed since you last spoke?
You might arrive ready to ask whether something previously discussed still matters. Leave room for the client to bring a different concern. Preparation should support your attention, rather than make it harder to hear what is new.
Step 3: Rehearse a moment if that would help
Use an entirely fictional scenario to explore an intervention you find difficult. For example, ask the AI to play a newly promoted leader who repeatedly asks what you would do. Respond for a few exchanges, pause and form your own view before inviting its observations.
A simulation can widen the responses you consider. It cannot tell you how a real client will respond.
Worked example · fictional notes and output
Keep an open question open
Previous note: “The client wondered whether to raise workload with their manager. They wanted time to consider what they needed.”
AI suggestion: “Review the outcome of the conversation with their manager.”
The suggestion assumes a conversation happened. The note does not establish that. Ask the AI to distinguish an open question from a completed action.
Your follow-up: “We do not know whether that conversation took place. Keep this as an open thread, and check for other assumptions about what happened between sessions.”
You can hold the question in mind without making it the agenda. The client may want to begin somewhere else.