The Intelligent Leader

CHAPTER 2 Thinking Differently, Thinking Big

When you read the title of this chapter, you might think of Steve Jobs and Apple computer’s classic 1997 advertising campaign. If you aren’t old enough to remember the ad, which many consider the greatest marketing campaign of all time, google it. The TV commercial at the center of the campaign, which marked Jobs’s return to Apple after a fifteen-year absence, features a series of clips of history’s great minds—Einstein, Dylan, Earhart, King Jr, Lennon, Ali—while a voice reads: “Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” As the screen goes to black, the words “Think Different” along with the Apple Macintosh logo appear, accompanied by silence.

It’s a powerful message, even today. At the time, it was revolutionary. When Jobs unveiled the campaign during one of his now iconic “reveal” speeches, it drew a standing ovation. People didn’t know it at the time, but the “Think Different” tagline would eventually become synonymous with the Apple brand, and shape the ethos of a company that brought us some of the most revolutionary technologies in history. And “thinking differently” has, for many people, become an essential quality of twenty-first-century leadership—for others, a way of life.

So I have to give Jobs and the late ’90s Apple marketing team at least some credit for inspiring ...