Process Safety and Behaviour Based Safety

There's a lot of buzz to day in behavior based safety. My experience indicates that as far as any safety is concerned, the behavior of top management is what dictates the behavior of the entire workforce.If top management keeps on talking about cost cutting and not talking about safety, that's what they will get - cost cutting measures getting implemented without analyzing the effect of the change on process safety! The BP Texas refinery incident is an example of this. The behavior of top management towards process safety does not involve rocket science. However, presently, a dangerous trend is taking place in the Industry. The board of directors in many of the chemical facilities do not have a technical person. My problem is not with the board of directors but with the information that reaches them. The president and other members of the top management who report to the board sometimes do not clearly communicate the risks involved in the implementation of certain decisions.This is a recipe for disaster.
I'm happy that the Baker Panel report has recommended that a person with adequate process safety experience must be on the board to explain to top management the effects of certain decisions on process safety.