After being in Shanghai, China on an internship with the American Managing Association for a few months, Shipeng “Troy“ Ni said he learned “how to interact with people in a business setting.”
A senior from China majoring in international cultural studies, Ni said his peacebuilding classes were “a huge help. I prepared myself to see others as people.”
Ni interned for approximately three months at AMA due to a recommendation from Arbinger. AMA partners with Arbinger, a consulting and training company that “helps people and organizations achieve breakthrough results through a profound change in mindset,” according to Arbinger.com.
The peacebuilding courses Ni took at BYU–Hawaii helped him prepare for better relationships. He said, “I was able to witness a lot of miracles like with the relationships between my colleagues. They told me after the first week I was the first intern they were interacting with. I guess in the company, the intern world and staff world are two different worlds. They don’t really talk, laugh or joke around. There is a rank, but I went in, made a good impression, broke the norm and we became good friends.”
He said his classes even helped with his roommates in Shanghai. “When I moved into the house, the three other roommates never talked to each other. They lived in the same apartment but in different rooms. They would say ‘Hi,’ but that was it. So when I went in I just started thinking about seeing people as people and being tolerant. I started doing stuff with them like making meals for them and that was a game-changer. It started at the point where no one talked to each other and then by the end, we all became best friends.”
While interning at AMA, Ni had the opportunity to go on a business trip with C. Terry Warner, co-founder of the Arbinger Institute, and Robert Morley, director of Arbinger Global Strategy, to Beijing and southern parts of China.
Ni said, “They came to China to visit their clients and promote their Arbinger seminars. AMA sent me to accompany them their entire trip. The American Training Magazine held a forum and a lot of training consulting companies went. It was a platform for companies to learn and customers to come and look at their products.”
His main role for the two-week trip was to ensure Warner and Morley were comfortable and everything went smoothly. Ni said, “Everything was already pre-arranged, but I was there to coordinate if they missed anything. I was able to translate as well. We went to the Great Wall of China and shopping. I was pretty much their assistant.”
He said his internship at AMA was basic. “I would go into the office at 9 a.m. and start doing normal AMA work like student survey collection. I collected data and put it into a more sophisticated form for the teachers to understand. I was also sent for Arbinger, so I did double the work. For Arbinger, I did a lot of translation of films and videos.”