A look at the squeeze between ambition and reality
Book a 2026 briefing to apply the lessons of my new book, The Myth and The Moment, to your leadership team’s toughest questions for next year.
Who are the Problem Solvers—and why do they matter to you?
The Problem Solvers are the regulators, planners, utility commissioners, engineers, and staffers who wake up each day tasked with getting things done.
Their daily to-do list is filled with contradictions: reduce emissions, expedite permits, hold down costs, keep the lights on.
And as The Myth of an Easy Energy Transition unravels, they’re operating in the narrowest space imaginable: a tiny alleyway between climate ambition and physical reality, squeezed from all sides—by ideology, legislation, litigation, and physics.
To navigate these pressures and emerge unscathed, the Problem Solvers need you (although they may not know it yet).
And for you to be effective, you need to understand what the world looks like from the desk of a Problem Solver.
In this series, I will tell you what it takes to understand, support, and empower these most important stakeholders. Why “most important”? Because the Problem Solvers are the ones holding the keys to an abundant, reliable, pragmatic energy future.
You want to build stuff? You need the Problem Solvers to succeed.
Both of these things are true:
- The Myth of an Easy Energy Transition is collapsing.
- The people tasked with delivering on The Myth—the Problem Solvers—still have to act as if it were real.
The Myth’s ghost isn’t just haunting the bureaucracy— in many cases, it’s running it.
How the world looks from their desks
The Problem Solvers come in many forms:
- Maria, a state utility commissioner, spends her days trying to reconcile legislative promises of “100 percent renewable power by 2035” with a grid that can barely handle a summer heatwave.
- Devon, an engineer at a tech company, was told to build a zero-emissions data center in a county where no zero-emissions power sources exist.
- Lena, a legislative staffer for a blue-district representative in a red state, is juggling community pushback on both energy projects and rising energy costs.
Every day the Problem Solvers walk a tightrope. The backdrop to this high-wire act: The Myth of an Easy Energy Transition. The Problem Solvers built careers navigating a world where the energy transition was taken as a given: underway, inevitable, free, and zero carbon. Not all their stakeholders understand that this was a myth. As a result, they are operating in a precariously small space:
- Maria the utility commissioner is caught between legislative timelines and grid reliability—and the political cost of rising rates to consumers.
- Devon the engineer faces the mandates-versus-megawatts dilemma, where corporate climate goals collide with what can be built right now.
- Lena the legislative staffer works in the gray space between ambition and execution, where voters expect The Myth to be delivered on without pain: a costless transition to zero-carbon energy.
Each Problem Solver answers to a different constellation of stakeholders: governors, legislators, investors, customers, mayors, utility boards, environmental groups, local voters, and the media. Every decision they make pleases no one completely. Their job performance is never measured by a single metric.
Here is the squeeze: They Myth promised reliability and affordability and decarbonization. Yet at any given time the Problem Solvers can pick only one, at most two, to deliver. And as demand for power surges, their choices get harder. And their constituencies grow ever more impatient.
Why does this matter to you, the oil and gas leader?
This matters to oil and gas leaders because the Problem Solvers are the people who will decide whether your project gets permitted, financed, subscribed to, or built. Without their success, abundant, affordable energy is impossible. In fact, without them abundance is impossible.
We can’t partner effectively with people we see as part of the problem. Understanding the constraints faced by the Problem Solvers is the first act of leadership. The rest of this series will lay out what is required of you next:
- Part 2 explores the emotional and professional reckoning of letting go of The Myth.
- Part 3 focuses on analytic courage—how to “get the call right.”
- Part 4 closes with ways to build the political and social cover that lets truth become policy.
Each part of this series builds toward one outcome: With your help, the Problem Solvers succeed. Their success is yours—and everyone’s.
Seize the day
The path to abundant, ever-decarbonizing energy isn’t paved in good intentions—it’s permitted, financed, and built by the Problem Solvers (with your help).
So, although it is tempting to lump all Problem Solvers into the camp of Myth adherents and evangelists, we need to understand their reality. Here’s where you can start:
- Identify your Problem Solver stakeholders. For a specific project, identify critical decision-makers and influencers, particularly those operating in a climate-centric legislative or regulatory environment.
- Who are their stakeholders? Map what the world looks like to them.
(1) For elected officials, look at their constituencies and funders. Look at what comes next for them—what legacy do they seek in service of pursuing a higher office?
(2) For private-sector players, assess their investors, employees, and customers.
(3) For appointed officials, take stock of their boss(es) and their constituencies and funders, who will have an eye to their own legacies and career path.
- How strong is The Myth’s influence on them? Consider: Are the Problem Solvers themselves true believers? Are their stakeholders? Remember that the power of a myth exceeds rational argument but is tied deeply to identity. (More on this in Part 2.)
- What did success look like to them under The Myth? For many Problem Solvers, the rules of the game have very recently changed. Many haven’t fully caught up and are still playing by the old rule book. It’s helpful if you understand that.
- What could their success look like now? They might not even know the answer to this question, but the query is a good way to start the conversation.
News about The Myth and The Moment!
The world seems hell-bent on exposing The Myth of an Easy Energy Transition—so what’s your next move? Consider these steps:
- Forward this email to your colleagues who interact with the Problem Solvers.
- Order The Myth and The Moment to get the full background on how we got here and where we go from here.
- Subscribe and share. If this was forwarded to you, please subscribe.
- Heart me! Help me help you help the Problem Solvers ❤️.
Next up: Making Peace with The Myth Being a Myth—how to help the Problem Solvers move from belief to realism.
To your empathetic eye,
Tisha
