Unlock Your Professional Growth: Mastering the OAT Principle

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
When cultivating self-awareness, one of the
things you can use is leveragewhat we call the OAT principle
Observe, act and tell.
Let me give you an example.
We were working with a creditunion recently and the people on
the front lines weren'tperforming, they weren't

(00:21):
executing referrals, theyweren't engaging, they weren't
executing referrals, theyweren't, you know, engaging with
members.
And it is tough because you'reout in the open and you're
talking about people's secondvaluable asset, besides their
children, is their money.
And it can be veryuncomfortable and I'm going to
use a demographic younger people.
They're just not as skilled andyou're talking to people who

(00:42):
are maybe twice your age abouttheir money, not comfortable.
So what we did is weimplemented an OAT principle.
When you are having downtime atyour teller station, observe
your teammates, act upon whatyou're observing in terms of
what are they doing well,observing in terms of what are

(01:09):
they doing well and then tell ofthe results in terms of what
you implemented based on yourobservation.
So when you observe, it fuelsthe brain.
When you act, you're takingwhat you learn from the
observation and then you'regoing to tell of the success and
notice.
I'm framing this out Tell usnot what happened, tell us of
the success, tell us of yoursuccess, and that's called the
OAT principle.

(01:29):
See, one of the things that wedo when we have downtime or when
we're not as busy, we tend totake breaks mental breaks.
I'll give you another example.
I had somebody who really wantedto move into management and one
of the key components wasleading meetings at this
particular company.
They were very data-driven.

(01:49):
You had to do a lot of stand-uppresentations.
I knew the person I wascoaching was blindly excited
about going for the position.
What I mean by that is she hadnever really done stand-up
presentations and I asked hershe goes, oh yeah, I'll do it
pretty good, I'll do it prettywell.
I said when was the last timeyou did one?
Well, I haven't, but I'mconfident I can do it.

(02:11):
And that's blind confidence.
I like the confidence but it'sblind.
So what I had her do for fourto eight weeks, I think it was,
is just observe presenters.
And then I had her ask herselfso I changed the A of OAT ask
herself what she could do anddemonstrate on the spot, and

(02:35):
then ask herself what she neededto improve.
And she had to journal that andthen she was going to tell me
of her commitment to improve.
So again, you can use the OATprinciple and adapt it
differently.
After about four presentationsshe started to say I've never
really done it from a PowerPoint, I've never done a stand-up

(02:56):
presentation, I need to practice.
She referenced a couple ofspeakers, how confident they
were, how they knew the numbersand never referenced the slides
again, and she said I found thatintimidating.
I said what do you thinkhappened to your confidence?
She said it's a little shaken.

(03:16):
I said well, that's good.
She said what do you mean?
I said you know, do you feellike you were confident, not
knowing, which is different thanbeing confident and actually
knowing?
She said well, yeah.
And I said don't you thinkyou're moving towards confidence
now knowing?
And she said yeah.
So I turned it into a positive.
Yet I knew if I told her you'renot ready, you've got to do

(03:43):
these standup presentations.
Are you really ready?
Ready, you've got to do thesestand-up presentations?
Are you really ready?
Where would she have gone withthose questions?
So when you observe, it teachesyou.
When you ask or act, itfacilitates an experience and
when you tell, you're basicallyowning the learning process.
It's called the OAT principle.