A national supplier of electric power was experiencing an unexplained increase in plant failure and maintenance lapses.  The power company had heard SBE's thesis that most business challenges can be met by higher levels of employee engagement and work ethic.  It engaged SBE to study the ethical landscape in several of its power stations to explore a possible link between the failures and the human dynamic and to recommend solutions.

SBE conducted qualitative and quantitative research to probe the underlying value systems in the organization, to discover to what extent they differed from the espoused organizational values, and to determine how they might be impacting performance.

SBE's research revealed that not only was trust between middle management and leadership seriously fractured, but that this broken trust translated into incessant cases of passive sabotage.  Employees were consciously and sub-consciously ignoring signs of impending failures and needs for repair.  There were even a few cases of active sabotage.  Additionally, employees were manipulating leave, overtime, and benefits to their own advantages, often with the complicity of managers.

SBE probed the reasons for the broken trust and mapped out a process to heal the fracture, build new relationships, and raise the bar of the work ethic. It is SBE's contention that while technology can fail for reasons beyond human control, engaged, energetic employees who feel ownership and identify with the corporate purpose and ethic can mitigate the damage from failures and often prevent them altogether.

SBE's view was recently affirmed: Based on the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force Report on the causes of the August 14, 2003 blackout, it is clear that while human error cannot be blamed for the initial failure of equipment, had employees and executives felt more engaged in the purpose of their work and committed to a sound set of principles and ethics, many billions of dollars of loss could have been avoided.