Unlock Your Professional Growth: Mastering the OAT Principle

    January 27, 2025 Posted by : Tim Hagen
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    Unlock Your Professional Growth: Mastering the OAT Principle

    When cultivating self-awareness, one of the things you can use is leverage what we call the OAT principle.

    Observe, Act, Tell

    Here's an example. We were working with a credit union recently and the people on the front lines weren't performing, they weren't executing referrals, they weren't engaging, they weren't engaging with members well. These roles are tough because you're out in the open and you're talking about people's second most valuable asset, besides their children, which is their money. It can be very uncomfortable. I'm going to use the younger demographic here. They're not as skilled or experienced, and they're talking to people who are two to three times their age about their money--not comfortable.

    What we did was implement the OAT principle. When they had downtime at their teller station, we asked them to observe their teammates, act upon what they observed in terms of what they did well, and then tell us the results of what they implemented based on their observation.

    When you observe, it fuels the brain. When you act, you're taking what you learn from the observation and then you're going to tell of the success and notice. Tell us not what happened; instead, tell us of the success, your success. That's called the OAT principle.

    One of the things we do when we have downtime or when we're not as busy, we tend to take mental breaks--we play on our phone, send texts, etc. I'll give you another example.

    I had somebody who really wanted to move into management and one of the key components was leading meetings at this particular company. They were very data-driven. There were a lot of stand-up presentations involved. I knew the person I was coaching was blindly excited about going for the position. What I mean by that is she had never really done stand-up presentations. When I asked her about it, she said, "Yeah, I'll do it pretty well, I'm not worried." I asked her when was the last time she presented one. She confessed she hadn't done one yet, but she was confident. That's blind confidence. Don't get me wrong, I like the confidence but it's blind.

    What I had her do for four to eight weeks was just observe presenters. Following the OAT principle, then I had her ask herself what she could do to act and demonstrate on the spot, and what she needed to improve. She had to journal that and then she was going to tell me of her commitment to improve.

    After about four presentations, she started to admit she'd never done it from a PowerPoint or standing up in front of a group, and that she needed to practice. She referenced several speakers she'd observed, how confident they were, how they knew the numbers and never referenced the slides again, and she found that intimidating. Her confidence was shaken. I told her that was a good thing.

    "What do you mean?" she asked me.

    I told her, "Do you feel like you were confident, not knowing, which is different than being confident and actually knowing?"

    She said yeah.

    "Don't you think you're moving toward confidence now knowing?" She nodded. So I turned it into a positive. Yet if I'd told her straight out she wasn't ready and presented the lesson as though I doubted her capabilities, where would she have gone with those questions?

    Instead, the OAT principle helped her come to that realization and helped her learn.

    When you observe, it teaches you. When you ask or act, it facilitates an experience. When you tell, you're basically owning the learning process. It's called the OAT principle.

    LEARNING PROJECTS FOR SELF-AWARENESS USING OAT PRINCIPLE:

    1. Observe others around you and journal what you see, specific to the topic of self-awareness that you're trying to improve, such as accepting or giving feedback, mindfulness, self-compassion, empathy or reflection

    2. Ask yourself what actions you can take to improve or facilitate better learning of that area.

    3. Tell yourself, your peer or supervisor what you're going to do to improve those skills.

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    About Author

    Tim Hagen
    Tim Hagen

    Tim Hagen founded Progress Coaching, a Training Reinforcement Partner Company, in 1997. His entrepreneurial career began in college leading to positions in sales, sales management, and sales training for small and large corporations, and eventually ownership of several training companies. Tim is often a keynote speaker at companies teaching the value of coaching and conversations in the workplace. He possesses a unique combination of hands-on experience, academics, and innovative insight to solve the industry’s most common challenges specific to workplace performance. Tim holds a bachelor’s degree in Adult Education and Training from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

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