It’s March 5th 2012. Nearly 20 Percent of 2012 is already behind us. How are your 2012 Innovation efforts going? Are you “hanging-ten” or barely hanging on? The only purpose of this post is to have you look at your operation and simply admit to yourself whether you’ve wasted two months or you’ve got a good start. Of course, if you’ve wasted two months I would urge action, now!

I’ve been reminded as of late just how much companies get in their own way. They spend so much time fussing over the Four Pessimist P’s* of Non-Innovation:

Process — “We’d love to start an innovation project but we haven’t made up our mind how to move forward yet, we must define a process first!

Projects — “We have urgent projects already underway, we can’t pull any resources away from them, they’re mission critical.”

Politics — “Our division wanted to get started on an innovation project but our proposal was held up at HQ, they’re still reviewing it and we gave it to them before Christmas last year…one of the VP’s wants to own innovation, so, our effort has been shelved.”

Procrastination — “We had a meeting scheduled mid-January which was cancelled and then rescheduled to mid-March…ahh, just checked my calendar, the sponsor has just changed it to May 1.”

Given how long it often takes to actually create a new product or service — even when you have a breakthrough idea in hand — if you haven’t gotten something going for this year yet, alarm bells should be ringing. Which of the 4 P’s has got you by the short ones? I can tell you this, whatever it is it’s Preventing you from being more successful.

If you are executing an innovation plan my hat’s off to you. In spite of a lot of gloom and doom there continues to be opportunity in the market place. Times of great change are times when wealth is created. Time is money AND Change is money. Those who are coming up with fresh ideas now are the ones who’ll be first to hang-ten on the next wave of prosperity. And if that train doesn’t come they’ll at least have that life vest of survival.

If you’re not doing much at this point, I have to ask — What’s more important than the future of your business? What exactly are you waiting for? I know managers are beset by urgent matters in running the business, and I know that resources are scarce, but there is always something you can do. Find a way to get started and then integrate small steps into every month, every week, every day.

It’s not too late to make 2012 your best innovation year ever. However it soon will be, so, give a call if you need help. You’ll be hangin ten soon if you start now…surf’s up — get on with it!

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* Apologies to Mel Rhodes whose 4 P’s of organizational creativity were neutral (People, Products, Process, and ‘Press’). Although we share one P in process, these four Pessimistic P’s almost entirely address the ‘Press’ in Rhodes’s work — it’s mostly about CulCha (read: culture).