Research report 2026The Borrowed Altitude research report · 2026
The Wrong
Energy Crisis
What 28 senior leaders told us about success that borrows from the future
Why we asked
Everyone is counting the watts. Almost nobody is counting the whys.
The energy crisis on the front page is about data centres, electricity and carbon. The one inside most organisations is about people, and it doesn't show up in the numbers until it's too late.
For more than two decades I've sat beside chief executives at the moment their results look best. Again and again I've seen the same thing: an organisation hitting its numbers on energy it isn't replacing.
I call it borrowed altitude. I learned it the hard way. I spent five years on a mission to make blood transfusion safe, and I nearly gave myself a heart attack.
A pattern you've lived is not evidence. So in 2026 we put the question to 28 chief executives, chairs and C-suite leaders who hadn't been told the argument, and listened for whether they would describe it in their own words.
Most of them did. Some got there before we'd finished asking. A few told us plainly that we were wrong, and one idea I was fond of didn't survive at all. All of that is in this report.
Borrowed altitude, on one page
Two axes. Four states. One blind spot.
Performance produced by energy the organisation isn't replacing. The results are real. The fuel is being spent faster than it's rebuilt, and nothing on the board paper shows it.
From the board table, the two at the top look exactly alike.
Every organisation can be read on two questions. How are we performing? Every board asks that monthly. What is producing that performance? Almost no board asks that at all.
Answer both and an organisation sits in one of four states. Answer only the first, and you can't tell the best of the four from the most dangerous.
That is the Altitude Paradox: from the board table, owned altitude and borrowed altitude look exactly alike. The metrics are strong in both. The difference is what's paying for them.
A quick gut check
Where would you put your organisation?
The full report
Read the full findings
Five findings, the fingerprint of all 28 interviews, what leaders said in their own words, and the finding that failed. Free. It takes a minute to unlock.
Finding 1