How innovative are you?

RECENTLY I SHUDDERED as I watched a mother strip her child and beat her up mercilessly for destroying her toy. I spent some fifteen or so minutes explaining to this woman that by disassembling the toy the child was trying to be creative. The little girl wanted to know what was inside this toy and how the parts had been assembled. She was interested in finding out whether she could re-assemble it. The mother could not look at it from that perspective; she only focused on the destruction bit.Many parents are killing their children’s creativity just like that. A child tries to suggest a solution to a business problem the parent is facing only to be yelled at. The child tries to sing, the parent screams “Shut up”. The child tries to ask a question in the presence of visitors, the parent barks “Shut up”. Some children have been told to “Shut Up” so many times that they may get tempted to think “Shut Up” is their other name.This is my advice to all parents: please allow your children to try out new things. In education language what the child was doing is called discovery leaning. Your child may destroy a radio or a computer but in the process gets ideas on how to become a great inventor. Children never want to stop at learning through observing; they also want to act and see what results they get.Discovery learning is not for children alone, but mature people as well. Don’t remain stuck in the ways of our grandfathers, in what some people call the ‘P. O. Box age’. This is the dot com era. It’s an information age where only the creative can make it to the top. If you want to see real success in your work, career or business, embrace discovery learning. Make it a point to learn something new today. Watch, listen to and read materials that will tickle your mind to generate new ideas.Life is never black and white. For some things you have to first try them out before you can tell whether they will work for you or not. Anyone who has never tried anything new is basically waiting for luck, which may never come. The best luck is the one you create by either doing new things or old things in a new way. When you sit in one place and wait for luck to find you there, bad luck might be the first to arrive. I know that in trying out new things there are risks, but in life we cannot avoid risks. Actually the worst risk is not risking at all.If you can read this message, you have enough intelligence to innovate. You can create new ideas. You can be the first one in your village to own a certain kind of business. You can be the initiator of a new idea in the politics of this country. When I mention politics know it’s time to end the article.Bake is the managing director of World of Inspiration & founder of the Authors’ Forum in Uganda