It was Steve Jobs who jump-started the now-famous “Think Different” advertising campaign as a way to inspire consumers and recharge Apple’s innovation efforts. It worked. Reflecting on the campaign, Jobs said “The whole purpose of the ‘Think Different’ campaign was that people had forgotten what Apple stood for, including the employees.” The campaign reminded everyone — consumers and employees — that the “crazy ones…see things differently.”

If thinking different can make such a positive difference, why don’t more people spend more time doing it?

A survey reveals that 60-80% of adults find the task of thinking different uncomfortable and exhausting. When adults must connect the unconnected through associational thinking, it wears them out. Why? Because most adults have lost the skills they once had. Most of us grew up in a world where thinking different was ‘punished’ or ridiculed, and traditional linear thinking was praised. So while roughly one-third of anyone’s innovation capacity comes from their genetic endowment, two-thirds of it is still driven by the environment.

As a business leader, how often do you think different? How often do you hunt for solutions in new environments?

Thinking different is easier said than done. We don’t claim that folks can jump from the low end of the bell curve of creativity performance to the high end just with practice. But when it’s done frequently enough, it can transform good ideas (and not-so-good ones) into great ones that might even disrupt the world.

A study shows that almost anyone who consistently makes the effort to think different can think different, and most people can actually do this reasonably well if they choose to put in the time and effort that’s required to think different. That’s what disruptive innovators do, day after day.

Do you? Can you? Will you?

It is 2023,

Dream Bolder.

Adapted from HBR.