CEO Lessons from the Universe

March 11, 2026

The Algorithm That Runs The Universe Also Runs Your Organisation

Nikola Tesla spent much of his life figuring out how to move electricity across continents without it disappearing along the way.

Modern leadership faces a surprisingly similar problem — moving energy across organisations without it quietly vanishing into meetings, committees, and PowerPoint.

The universe is not especially interested in your strategy.

It has galaxies to spin, stars to collapse, and the occasional civilisation to evolve or quietly delete.

But it does operate according to a very consistent rule.

Any system that stops injecting energy eventually loses the battle with entropy.

Human Energy Transmission

Electricity and human energy have the same challenge: Transmission.

With electricity we measure potential in volts and the flow or current in amps.

In organisations we measure potential energy - how we think, act and interact - with the powerful Game Changing Index and its five proclivities. We use our Org Energy Index to measure the flow of the energy in the system.

The key to the flow of all human energy lies in the system's transmission capability. This is the essential role of the Playmaker.

In the diagram above you can see the important role of the Playmaker - the 'transmission engineer' the corpus callosum to ensure a healthy flow of energy - cognitive processing, emotional interpretation and information transfer.

The Energy Fractal Loop

Most organisations think strategy drives evolution.

It doesn’t.

Energy does.

At the deepest level of reality, the universe runs on a very simple algorithm:

Energy → Entropy → Evolution

Energy enters a system. Entropy pushes back. The system adapts.

When adaptation works, something remarkable happens.

Evolution.

Stars evolve this way. Cells evolve this way. Brains evolve this way.

And — slightly inconveniently for traditional management thinking — organisations evolve this way too.

The Real Problem in Organisations

Companies rarely lack ideas.

They lack energy conversion.

New strategies are announced.

New initiatives are launched.

New transformation programmes appear.

But most of that energy never survives organisational entropy.

Meetings absorb it. Processes slow it down. Politics distorts it. Complexity suffocates it.

The energy never becomes evolution.

It simply dissipates.

The Leadership Energy System

Human organisations mirror the architecture of the brain.

On one side:

Game Changers generate new possibilities. Strategists give those possibilities direction.

On the other side:

Implementers turn intent into action. Polishers stabilise performance and improve quality.

Between them sits a critical bridge.

The Playmaker.

Playmakers move energy across the system.

Without them organisations split into two very familiar tribes:

Brilliant thinkers who never execute or:

Relentless executors who never change direction.

Activating the Bridge

This is why tools like LEGO® Serious Play are surprisingly powerful.

They force ideas to become visible.

When leaders build models:

abstract thinking becomes physical shared meaning emerges energy crosses the bridge

In neurological terms, both hemispheres activate.

In organisational terms:

the system starts moving.

The Missing Piece: The Energy Fractal

But activation is not enough.

Evolution requires repetition.

This is where the Energy Fractal comes in.

A fractal is a simple pattern that repeats at every scale.

In organisations it takes the form of small energy loops:

Energy → Entropy → Evolution

Each loop injects new intent. Entropy tests it in reality. Learning produces adaptation.

Then the loop repeats.

Thousands of small loops eventually create large transformation.

The Energy Fractal Loop

The Möbius strip in the diagram represents this principle.

It has only one surface.

Follow it long enough and you return to where you started — but transformed.

Strategy and execution are not separate.

Thinking and acting are not separate.

They are simply different points in the same loop.

Energy → Entropy → Evolution → Repeat

The New Leadership Question

The most important leadership question is no longer:

"What is our strategy?"

It is:

"Where are our next energy fractal loops?"

Because evolution does not arrive through grand plans.

It arrives through small loops of energy repeated relentlessly.

Just like the universe itself.