Many people work on their goals by engaging in positive actions—hitting the gym, planning a trip, or taking guitar lessons. But they may be overlooking one of the most important tools for effecting change: the power of thought.

I love standards, and whether you know it, you love standards, too. For example, let’s say a bulb in your lamp goes bad. You drive down to the local hardware store, buy a bulb, come back home, change out the bulb, plug the lamp back in, and... it lights up.

Last year I had a short stay at one of Boston’s best hospitals. Although I will be forever grateful for the excellent treatment I received while in their care, I wondered about a few systems that sat directly in front of my bed. So, I took a picture to share later.

In 2013, thousands of consumers in the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland bought, prepared—and ate—beef lasagna, hamburgers, and frozen dinners. What they didn’t know is what they were actually putting in their mouths.

Imagine building a brand over decades. Hundreds of millions of dollars invested in design and development. Sponsorships with celebrity athletes and professional and college teams. Leading-edge marketing making your company one of the top 20 brands in the world.

The spring and summer of 2000 were a long time ago, but I learned some lessons during those months that have stayed with me. In fact, the learning from that experience is still happening as I continue to connect it to things I see today.

Lately, the term “innovator” conjures up the image of a young entrepreneur disrupting an industry with concepts like ridesharing, e-currency, or meal-kit delivery. But it doesn’t have to.

A novel system developed at MIT uses RFID tags to help robots home in on moving objects with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

It’s worthwhile to nurture a culture of change by creating a new business strategy for the year ahead. However, the strategy can fail when organizations don’t have a plan to create lasting and sustainable change.