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July 14, 2018

A Symphony of “Learn & Grow”

By Jamie Hsu
Advisor of NAAAP Detroit

Prelude: The Workshop

I attended an invigorating NAAAP Learn and Grow workshop on “Creativity and Problem Solving”. The whole event was well orchestrated and filled with fun, learning, team bonding, and creative solutions. This beautiful symphony has 4 distinctive movements.

Movement 1: Icebreaking

To introduce the participants and get everyone loosen up, we were asked to pick one of the many construction materials and decoration samples to represent ourselves. The reasons given by everyone’s selection of sample were both funny and serious. The process lets us know each other and gets our creative juice flowing.

Movement 2: Learning the Process

We were given three examples of how creative processes were used in office design, automobile design, and art studio. It is amazing how similar processes are used and applied successfully in different fields. That is the intent of NAAAP: help professionals learn from other fields and find common best practices.

Movement 3: Applying the Learning

Participants were formed in teams to address two problems: one is to utilize an empty church building in poor neighborhood, another one is to change the college education to be more relevant for careers. Following the creative problem-solving processes, the teams came up with the most interesting and unusual solutions in a short 30 minutes.

Movement 4: Sharing the Results

The teams reported their results using the framework and steps of the problem-solving methodology. It was obvious that the diverse background and the common learning of the team members have created strong synergy among them. The results from a short 30 minutes work session were most impressive.

Postlude: My Takeaways

This workshop represents well the vision and mission of NAAAP– To have aspiring professionals learn from each other and to grow their careers in all fields of work. In today’s workshop, the ‘four movements’ are well connected with the theme of creativity and team synergy. It was a memorable and beautiful NAAAP L&G symphony. Thanks to all the organizers and participants.