MICHELLE HOCHKEPPEL
a current Project
I'm part of a Sales Team for an agricultural company that serves North America. Each year we make a group presentation that is then delivered individually at regional conferences.
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Over the years there have been several strengths and gaps to this process.
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Strengths:
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Group idea generation
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Crowd-sourcing fact checks
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Keeping the greater goal in mind
Gaps:
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It is often collective but not collaborative
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The workload is often lop-sided
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Accountability for task completion is lacking
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Haphazard organization and last minute finalization
Presentation Process
I focused my project on our presentation process. I made documents from collective dialogues and survey feedback. Below you'll find a brief summary of the project, a Timeline for our annual presentation, and a Standard Operating Procedure outlining the goals and outcomes of this project.
The Team
It's important to note a little bit about the team. We work remotely and we live all over. This contributes to our diversity of thought and experience. We typically come together once a year to work in person, analyze product development and discuss department growth.
What We Do
Commercial grower support is at the heart of what we do. Understanding what products work for our growers, how to improve them and what to look for is crucial. This often takes us into the fields to see new breeding populations and advancements. We take these elements into consideration when developing our presentations.
Background
Things to consider along the way:
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What do I want as a leader? What does this require of me?
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Connecting with colleagues and sticking with the feedback loop
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Finding our own design thinking within the process
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Ethical group-decision making
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Engaging through curiosity
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The steps its taken to get here:
01
Leading
Motivated by this program, I volunteered to lead our Presentation Process in 2022 hoping to clarify and improve it. The ups and downs of teamwork encouraged me to seek feedback by way of a survey.
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Feedback Loop
We came together to review the survey responses and piece together a presentation timeline based on 'due date' and conference date knowledge. Verbalizing this brought clarity to the depth of the timeline.
02
Survey
Once we had a final presentation I put out a survey for feedback on the group presentation process. The 10 questions survey was great for independent reflection and helped us understand our strengths and gaps.
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Outcome
This is an ever-evolving process. This year, the team wants to explore making multiple presentations. This will be a challenging additional element to the process. Hopefully our enhanced awareness will serve us in this collaborative change.
The outcome:
Timeline
Developing a timeline that works for each team member, our marketing team, and our conference season is a big deal. We have to give ourselves time to meet (remotely), time to process, create and research while also allowing space for all the life that happens amidst work-life.
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This timeline gives us ample time ahead of our 'zero hour' deadline.
See the Timeline
standard
operating
procedure
Part of the confusion was that a standard didn't really exist. We hadn't talked about it, and changing team size over the years meant that this process changed with it.
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Writing an SOP and establishing SLAs helped clarify our goals as well as our language around what we're doing.
See the sop
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Reflection
Continuing to think about this project:
Personal Growth
This project has helped me in a few ways: I've been able to identify as a leader, it's helped me see my own strengths and gaps in teamwork and leadership and has made me see the value in seeking feedback even though it can be intimidating and scary.
Stewardship
My leadership philosophy mentions the challenges I face in optimism and control, and shifting my perspective to be a steward of the process instead of an owner of the process. This long term, annual project has provided great reflection in this realm.
Change Over Time
How do we truly make this process collaborative? How do our mindsets shift based on flexibility and structure within this process? By initiating the feedback loop, we have inherently made it part of the process. This will serve us as this process develops year over year.
other projects:
2023
airtable
Though it sounds simple, it ain't! I'm currently helping develop a process for entering, tracking and relaying data sets within a small business. As a complex, yet helpful systems tool, Airtable will elevate the data levels we generate and provide a balcony view.
2016
held goods
Held Goods is a pottery and produce company I started in Portland, OR. I enrolled in a matching grant small-business program to fund the start-up capital needed to get off the ground. I branded, built the website, found the outlets, designed and made the pottery.