The malingering global economy has created, in many workplaces, a pervasive climate of fear. Fear can undermine worker safety in many ways. But unless we understand the nature and origins of this fear, we can never implement effective countermeasures.

As a good friend recently told me, "so many of us have had our heads buried in the feeding trough earning a living and paying our bills, we have not had time to look up and pay attention to what the hell is going on around us."

Something went wrong…people got hurt. This sounds like the midnight call that all safety managers hate to get. A call that indicates an injury occurred and a whole litany of steps need to be taken: Comfort the victim and family, shut down the area, and deal with the paperwork.

This problem is called “Sequestration”! If you recall, Congress failed to come up with adequate spending cuts following enactment of the Budget Control Act. This law stated that if Congress failed to cut spending by about $1.4 trillion, then automatic spending cuts would take effect on January 1, 2013.

“When I was a young man I was given a check for a million dollars. I tore it up and went to the top of a mountain to contemplate the mistakes of mankind…one man in particular.” Joe Martin, Cartoonist.

I discovered these factors that influence behavioral ethics in the course of my doctoral research, when I analyzed 150 different derailments within organizations. Since then, these factors have been tested in various studies.