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An Upgraded Definition of Risk Based Process Safety Core Value and Its Impact in Light of Anthropology & Intercultural Communication on Future Evolution of Process Safety Culture & Management

Steven (Long) Zhang Asset & Operating Integrity, ConocoPhillips Steven.Zhang@conocophillips.com E4B4, East Wing Binhai Finance Zone, TEDA, P.R.China

[Insert here any copyright claims you wish to assert]

Prepared for Presentation at American Institute of Chemical Engineers 2013 Spring Meeting 9th Global Congress on Process Safety San Antonio, Texas April 28 May 1, 2013

UNPUBLISHED

AIChE shall not be responsible for statements or opinions contained in papers or printed in its publications

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An Upgraded Definition of Risk Based Process Safety Core Value and Its Impact in Light of Anthropology & Intercultural Communication on Future Evolution of Process Safety Culture & Management

Steven (Long) Zhang Asset & Operating Integrity, ConocoPhillips Steven.Zhang@conocophillips.com E4B4, East Wing Binhai Finance Zone, TEDA, P.R.China

War is a vital matter of state. It is the field on which life or death is determined and the road that leads to either survival or ruin, and must be examined with greatest care. - Sun Tzu (551BC 479BC)

Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder. - Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975)

Keywords: Core Value, Process Safety Cultural Communication, 4 pillars, Anthropology, Intercultural Communication, Power Distance, Organizational Patterns, future evolution

Abstract
Within this paper, some attempts to underpin Risk Based Process Safety Temple or 4 pillars are made through an upgraded definition of RBPS core value, with which and in context of anthropology and intercultural communication, 5 organizational patterns of process safety core value are examined to accommodate as an atlas of core values for process industry and beyond . And a new blueprint of future evolution of process safety culture and management is prospected in light of the scheme in section 4.5 of this paper.

Note: Do not add page numbers. Do not refer to page numbers when referencing different portions of the paper

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1. Introduction
During the latest several decades, many catastrophic accidents were witnessed within process industry and beyond [1], and within the latest 2 decades, the investigation of the catastrophic accidents started being aware and gradually shifting the focus to the universal and deeper underlying cause i.e. organizational cultural issues [2] [3], which in more recent past was called process safety culture [4], especially after Columbia Shuttle Accident and BP Texas Refinery Explosion. [5] In the authors opinion, the investigation of the issue of process safety culture should go one substantive step further to the deepest and ultimate root cause i.e. individual and organizational value, whose determinant and predicting characteristics with full meaning and implications of anthropology and intercultural communication shall neither be overlooked nor superficially touched and must be understood within industry, otherwise the industry and beyond would be still in the darkness. And the author also believes that the current CCPS Risk Based Process Safety Temple or 4 Pillars is a good building with correct design intent, but there should be a healthy landlord to live within and to work, eat and exercise, and even to buy a new house with new style of design to live within. So the author attempts to work as a guide from start point RBPS Temple to the some greatest lessons learned and experiences of East and West of the ancient time, where all of the visitors may find the landscape of the future of process safety culture and management themselves.

2. Risk Based Process Safety (RBPS) Myth or Reality?

2.1 Risk Based Process Safety? A sense of vulnerability toward collapse of RBPS Temple[6] In 2007, CCPS presented its unprecedented Risk Based Process Safety Approach to process industries and the approach consists of 4 pillars (and related 20 elements) which are expected to function collectively as temple or house with sound structural design intent so that the temple or house remains structurally safe and prevents the occurrence of raining within. And the 4 pillars are as below: Commit to Process Safety; Understand Hazards and Risk; Manage Risk; and Learn from Experience And the RBPS presents really a reasonable and rational approach with which the process safety could be managed in risk based manner, as many insiders and outsiders wished ideally. However, there might have been another possibility, i.e. the scenario within which process safety could neither be risk based managed nor managed in any other manner at all. And for the fact that we do not intend to give up risk based approach that appears to be of

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the most state of the art and that we have to go forward along with the possibility of failure in managing process safety in risk based manner, we need to pull out of the water the underlying implications that might have not been identified behind the risk based approach that process safety might not be able to be risk based managed due to failure of any single, or a combination of more than one, of the 4 pillars. And reasonably, 4 basic categories of pillar failure are presented as below: Commitment to process safety is compromised; Organizational failure to understand the hazards and risk; Organizational failure to manage risk; and Organizational failure to learn from experience Obviously, there are some inherent interacting and cause-effect relationships, through which the failure of one pillar may correlate to one of another. Holistically, however, the issue of process safety culture appears to be the main threat to the RBPS temple which might have collapsed actually at site, as increasingly demonstrated by some catastrophic accidents in recent past. And Process Safety Culture 1st element of 1st pillar functions as the keyhole for the RBPS temple through which we heard a definition of process safety core value as well as a tale of it preferably or idealistically being promoted to an ethical imperative. 2.2 Organizational Cultural Weaknesses - Root or Branches? When retrospect near history within process industries and beyond, we really have witnessed a train of collapses of the safety management building, from Piper Alpha to Longford, to Columbia Shuttle Accident etc, and the general impression of the investigation results and/or lessons of these catastrophic accidents is that the detailed causeeffect pictures vary considerably; organizational cultural weaknesses, however, usually stay at the center of the cluster of the investigation findings. And among the list of the organizational cultural weaknesses are: lack of sense of vulnerability, normalization of deviance, lack of open communication [7], lack of a culture of trust [8], absence of mindfulness [9], deference to hierarchy rather than expertise etc. [10] And facing the challenges of various organizational cultural weaknesses or namely lack of mindfulness, some studies & research were made and experiences reflected from within and other industries, among which 2 theories i.e. High Reliability Organization (HRO) [11] [12] and Process Safety Culture might be more attractive. [13] One question, however, might have not been asked within the process industries that: Is it coincidental or inherent that these organizational cultural weaknesses occur at the same time? Or these organizational cultural weaknesses are inherently family members? Prior to going further for a correct answer to this question, we need to make sense of 2 concepts in context of Anthropology and Intercultural Communication: one is value that might have been misunderstood to some extent since the words value culture have been mentioned more and more frequently; the other is intercultural communication or cultural

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communication that appears superficially afar from process safety culture and management but substantively more nearer to the heart of process safety culture and management than the RBPS 4 pillars themselves. And one innovative definition is given by the author to value and intercultural communication respectively as below: Value is the deepest part of culture, heart of culture, and far more stable than, and determines, who we are collectively and individually. [14] Intercultural Communication is the livelihood for the value of a culture within a cultural ecology and functions as photosynthesis for the culture tree and value root. So upon the innovative definitions and analogues, we may reasonably speculate out a big picture within which most organizational cultural weaknesses look like the issues climbing at the branches along which downward to under ground where value or namely core value is found to be the ultimate cause level for almost all of the catastrophic accidents. And in another words, the occurrence of catastrophic accidents inherently have ultimate cause-effect relationships with the actual core value of the organizations.

2.3

Core Value of RBPS Root for the Tree of Process Safety Culture

As defined above, Value is the deepest part of culture, heart of culture, and far more stable than, even determines, who we are. So value is a more inherent authority to tell who we are and whats really going on with our individual, organizational and societal life. As the classic value studies e.g. Hofstedes Cultural Consequences (1980) tells, value consists of 4 dimensions: Power Distance, Individualism-Collectivism, Masculinity-Femininity and Uncertainty Avoidance, or of 5 dimensions should Long Term-Short Term Orientations be added as 5th dimension. [15] And at this stage, making sense of Power Distance as ladder is adequate enough to understand and effectively define RBPS Core Value so only the definition of Power Distance is borrowed and presented as below: Power Distance between a boss B and a subordinate S in a hierarchy is the difference between the extent to which B can determine the behavior of S and the extent to which S can determine the behavior of B. [16] And by analogy, the author defines further a subtle underlying sub-dimension of Power Distance which could be called Process Safety Expertise Power Distance, whose definition is like this: Process Safety Expertise (PSE) Power Distances is the extent to which PSE can exclusively chair at the highest strategic level throughout all the processes of decision making and behavior determining of the organization and its members as far as PSE concerns.

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And Process Safety Expertise means neither any process safety engineer nor any world prestigious process safety expert, but the divine essence of the highest strategic insights and vision of process safety management, the Tao for process safety culture, and soul of The Art of Warfare against catastrophic process safety accidents. And some practitioners and researchers on process safety management might argue that what I presented and defined is too idealistic and simple to be practicable. The business case research for process safety made by CCPS, however, might have helped answer the question to some extent where some strategic benefits such as of business flexibility, sustained value etc should be proportionately speculated. [17] And the authors opinion seems also being supported by Sun Tzu who said: Of old the expert in battle would first make himself invincible and then wait for the enemy to expose his vulnerability. [18] At the end, we arrive at the definition of RBPS core value: PSE shall eternally and exclusively chair at the highest strategic level throughout all the processes of decision making and behavior determining of the organization and its members as far as PSE concerns. And if simplified further, the core value could be defined as: There is no power, authority or governance on process safety except on behalf of process safety expertise. And also with reference to the 4 pillars, an unfolded description of core value is: RBPS Core Value functions as the root of the tree of process safety culture, whose deficiencies are symptoms or signals for a dying or dead state of core value, which means that the organization has highest strategically failed in managing process safety through a risk based approach even though there has been no occurrence of process safety accidents till that moment. In another words, the RBPS temple is bound to collapse, sooner or later, due to the change or drift from the original design intent of the temple. So what is the original design intent? It is the intended correct core value, whose actual living quality claims responsibility for the occurrence or non-occurrence of catastrophic process safety accidents. And core value functions as the landlord for the temple, and should core value die within, the temple may still look like a house outwardly, but substantively with a purpose of tomb.

2.4

Process Safety Cultural Communication Pulse from Heart & Photosynthesis for Root Cultural communication or intercultural communication might have a long history of the nearly same length than the history of human being. Intercultural Communication, however, has gradually become a subject of humanity and social science very recently, universally deemed since 1959 when Anthropologist Edward T. Hall presented his book The Silent Language, within which his earth-breaking opinion on the complicated relationship between culture and communication was presented that culture is communication and communication is culture.[19] And I borrowed his perspective and define the relationship between process safety culture and process safety cultural communication as this: process

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safety culture could not exist except through process safety cultural communication. And process safety cultural communication is the photosynthesis for the tree of process safety culture. And as the subject of intercultural communication matures, especially of Hofstedes Cultural Consequences (1980), the relationship between value and culture (communication) become manifest that value is the deepest and most stable part of the culture or communication, and the ultimate purpose of the culture and communication is to convey the value of the culture. And it is very hard or even impossible for a value to change, especially for a relatively short period of time. Culture, however, often adjusts subject to change of time and space. [20] And I borrowed again and define the relationship between RBPS Core Value and Process Safety Culture (or Process Safety Cultural Communication): the ultimate purpose of Process Safety Culture or Process Safety Cultural Communication is to convey the message of the RBPS Core value. Without nourishment from RBPS core value, the tree of Process Safety Culture or Process Safety Cultural Communication would get dry and dead. And as a living landlord, core value needs livelihood, i.e. cultural communication, to sustain alive and keep a good quality of life. Within an organization should there were 2 core values toward process safety, the 2 values would not cease to collide and compete with each other till one of them would die. And even the enemy core value died, the remaining core value would still constantly be communicated as the exclusive chair at the highest strategic level throughout all the processes of decision making of, and reinforce the determination on behaviors of, the organization and its members. Facing the challenges such as market ideology [21], schedule pressure [22] etc, some members of the organization might get empowered from RBPS Core Value to enhance the Process Safety Culture Communication so that the temple and its 4 pillars could be repaired and maintained to good condition and the original design intent i.e. RBPS Core Value also might be confirmed and reassessed to see if the temple could stand the impact of future wave of external ideologies that intend to share the chair exclusiveness at the highest strategic level. So decision making might be made to reinforce the temple or even abandon the temple to find a big ship instead to flee. So in the authors opinions, the issue of process safety culture would prove to be more complicated than the process industries and beyond could imagine. The current purpose of the intercultural communication is to manage the communicative conflict rather than conflict between values. And as long as the intercultural communicative conflict is managed and solved to some extent the business and trade between people with different values may be achieved. But the purpose of the process safety cultural communication is to do the business of value, let alone having to be achieved within single organization. The author borrows a few of greatest lessons learned and experience from West and East cultural tradition, all of which occurred over 2000 years ago, with attempt to accommodate as an atlas of RBPS Core Value for shedding light on the myth of catastrophic process safety accidents within process industries and beyond so that the landscape of the future

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evolution of process safety culture and management could be speculated by all visitors travelling along with the author.

3. From Columbia Shuttle Accident to Brotherhood of Bian Que Atlas for Process Safety Core Values
3.1 Bian QueDuke Cai : Ancient East Version of Columbia Shuttle Accident [23] The story of Bian Que and Duke Cai was recorded by Han Feizi (280BC- 233BC) who was a prince in Warring States Period and we currently might call him independent scholar or single person think tank. And even there were many examples and brilliant commentary on failure of process safety communication within his brilliant book Han Feizi, its enough to examine what really happened between Bian Que and Duke Cai. As icon for Chinese traditional medicine, Bian Que was regarded as an unparalleled representative for ancient Chinese medical process safety expertise. At the different critical stages of the disease development within Duke Cai, Bian Que consistently persuaded Duke Cai to get treatment till being too late when disease got inside spine. And during the whole communication process, Duke Cai resisted to Bian Que with many times of indifference and one time famous commentary Doctors like to be highly merited through curing patients without a disease. And at end Bian Que fled away when it was too late to cure the disease and Due Cai died. And we could also easily recognize these organizational cultural deficiencies that have been identified regarding the Columbia shuttle accident, such as lack of sense of vulnerability, lack of open communication, lack of mutual trust, lack of deference to expertise etc. But facing the simplest organization example for process safety culture, we might become not so optimistic toward the current recommended countermeasures to organizational cultural deficiencies within the industries [24]. And if there might be some improvement in process safety culture, the author prefers to believe that the mental and psychological impact of catastrophic (process) safety accidents such as Columbia shuttle accident on the value sub-dimension Process Safety Expertise Power Distance (PSEPD) of the organizations contributes far more than what have been implemented as countermeasures to organizational cultural deficiencies, if the latter really has achieved some substantive improvement. And lets characterize the lessons learned and experience as below in light of anthropology and intercultural communication: Core Value: even Bian Que privately has a correct core value for medical process safety culture. Process Safety Cultural Communication: Bian Que consistently failed throughout the communication process with Duke Cai to convey the message of the core value: There is no power, authority or governance on process safety except on behalf of process safety

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expertise. And for the fact that it only concerns the death or life of Duke Cai himself, Bian Que should not be blamed and actually he was very professional and highly ethical with regard to his responsibility. But we recognize Bian Que was not a good strategist with regard to process safety expertise. And he didnt understand that RBPS Core Value was a seed, which only could have survived and grown up into a tree should it firstly be sowed deep into the soul of Duke Cai. And Bian Que cut off and presented the crown to Cai who eventually as well as naturally failed to prevent the crown without root from getting dry and dead. Communication Direction: the communication is originated upward hierarchy, but the attempt was restricted by the hierarchy. Organizational Decision Making: in this case, Dukes life is the operation toward which the decision making is made. Personally, he had the final word regarding to the decision making of his life, even though it proved to be wrong. And organizationally, Duke also had the final word regarding not only his life but also everything within his territory. But we recognize neither this was a correct decision nor the organizational decision making process worked properly. Organizational Change: the smallest organization only consists of 2 members, one of whom fled, and the other died. So the organization underwent an unprecedented dramatic change.

3.2

Moses-Pharaoh: Ancient West Version of Columbia Shuttle Accident [25] [26] And lets examine another ancient example of Columbia shuttle accident, and there were some chapters and narrations of the accident concerning Moses and the Pharaoh within holy books. When we unveil the theological surface, what was really going on might be what we have been very familiar with within our subject process safety culture. And Moses better performed than his counterpart Bian Que, and what he said to the Pharaoh might have been like this: you shall obey process safety expertise, otherwise you shall be accountable and responsible for the future catastrophic process safety accidents. And what happened subsequently was the very same as what we saw of Duke Cai. But as we all know, the story ended up slightly different from the ancient East version. And lets also characterize the lessons learned and experience concerned as below: Core Value: Moses privately has a correct core value for divine process safety culture. Process Safety Cultural Communication: Moses consistently attempted to convey the message of RBPS core value to the Pharaoh throughout the communication process with the latter. And we recognize Moses was a good strategist with regard to divine process safety expertise.

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Communication Direction: the communication was originated from bottom to upward hierarchy, but the attempt to convey the message of the core value was strong and the restriction to the upward communication was also very strong. So the conflict between the 2 core values, one from Moses and the other from the Pharaoh, escalated. Organizational Decision Making: in this case, the organizational decision making could not have been made due to lasting unsettled match between the values of Moses and the Pharaoh till the original organization broke into 2 separate ones. And afterwards, Moses and his people attained a correct organizational decision making process and reliably made correct organizational decisions. And the Pharaoh and his people also made right decision due to their own organizational core value, which contradicted with RBPS core value. Organizational Change: the bigger organization inevitably experienced organizational change which was actually intervened from outside. And philosophical slightly, the organizational change of Bian Que and Duke Cai was also intervened from outside to some extent.

3.3

Sheba Queens Journey to Kingdom of Solomon : A Road to Process Safety Enlightenment [27] [28] The story of the Sheba Queens journey to the kingdom of Solomon was too deeply rooted within West cultural tradition for western counterparts to be aware that it might have been deeply rooted within process safety culture as well. For the fact that there had been no process safety culture within the kingdom of Sheba, the Sheba Queen set out the journey to the kingdom of Solomon and when she stepped on the land of the kingdom of Solomon she might have been amazed and impressed with the splendid building (process safety management system), highly flourished culture (process safety culture) and, more importantly, a RBPS core value (process safety expertise power distance). And finally she started her back trip to her kingdom with determination of reform. And her subsequent reform with RBPS core value was very smooth and her kingdom experienced unprecedented prosperity for a not-short period of time, but not as prosperous as the kingdom of Solomon was. And then her kingdom gradually declined, and coincidentally the kingdom of Solomon also unconsciously declined. So lets examine and characterize the lessons learned and experience which remains secret to process industries and beyond: Core Value: The Sheba Queen originally didnt hold the RBPS Core Value; within the journey to the kingdom of Solomon however, she acquired the RBPS Core Value. And Solomon acquired a RBPS Core Value at a small age.

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Process Safety Cultural Communication: When RBPS Core Value was conveyed through process safety cultural communication upward or horizontally, the people who receive the information had the rights and freedom to determine themselves what behind the universe of the process safety cultural communication including languages, nonverbal languages, value dimension e.g. power distance unconsciously exposed is a true RBPS Core Value or a fraud one. But when RBPS Core Value was conveyed downward the hierarchy, especially in a hasty manner, there were 2 scenarios of behavior, even though the intellectual process occurred the same as upward or horizontally. One scenario was that the subordinate behavior showed obedience to superior carrying the momentum of lack of Process Safety Expertise Power Distance, just superficially accepting the RBPS Core Value; the other would be to challenge the truth of the core value with pitfalls identified of the current process safety cultural communication. And should the superior have given timely response to rectify enough pitfalls to confirm to the subordinates rationale, the subordinate might have acquired the RBPS Core Value. And this challenge-confirmation process should have been repeated as many times as any subordinates rationale stimulated. In other words, the Sheba Queen should have demonstrated not only by example but also through her behavior universe that RBPS Core Value was the exclusive power, authority and governance on process safety, whereas Sheba Queen herself was powerless and had neither authority nor governance on process safety. And this situation that occurred not only at the kingdom of the Sheba Queen but also at the kingdom of Solomon seems a paradox, on which anthropology and intercultural communication really have some shedding light. Communication Direction: the communication was originated from top downward the hierarchy, either for the kingdom of the Sheba Queen or for the kingdom of Solomon. Organizational Decision Making: compared to the case of Bian Que and Duke Cai, there had been a dramatic policy change in organizational decision making process. However, in some cases, superficially there was a RBPS Core Value within the kingdom of Sheba, there was still some original superior-subordinate behavior determination relationship that contradicted with Process Safety Expertise and RBPS Core Value. And this unenlightened relationship might had brought some forced engrain of superior-preferred dull design style of RBPS temple, which actually was a fatal strike to the creativity that might be inspired and cultivated by RBPS Core Value. Organizational Change: organizational change could not be counted on to face the challenge of decline for kingdoms of not only Sheba but also Solomon.

3.4

Brotherhood of Bian Que : The Art of Warfare against Catastrophic Process Safety Accidents

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And Bian Que ever was asked by another Duke that among the 3 medical doctors Bian Que, his elder brother and eldest brother, whose skills was the nearest to the Tao or divine essence of Chinese traditional medicine expertise? Bian Ques comment was so fascinating and philosophical that it might have to be borrowed to be the caliber of process safety culture excellence. And Bian Ques comment was like this: his eldest brother was highest skillful and the nearest to the Tao or divine essence of Chinese traditional medicine expertise. Because he always was able to be skillful at curing or preventing the disease at the very early stage when the subtle symptoms were identified, and that only made him known across the neighborhood and within their small village. And his elder brothers skills were relatively moderate and he usually cured disease at the stage where the symptoms were remarkable, which helped him known across their township and the neighborhood cities. And Bian Que himself was the lowest skillful at curing disease because he often had to cure the disease at the severe stage where should the disease were delayed the patient should be at a risk of death, due to which Bian Que, however, became very famous across all the countries during Spring & Autumn Period. [29] Sure, there might had been to some extent due to some factors of brotherhood and humility behind Bian Ques comment, which would not prevent us from examining and characterizing the lessons learned and experience concerned: Core Value: Bian Que, his elder brother & his eldest brother all hold RBPS Core Value, and their respective patients communities varied from full embrace of RBPS Core Value to being untamed to process safety expertise at the highest strategic level e.g. of Duke Cai. In another words, the higher the superior at the hierarchy, the more difficult and urgent for him to become accustomed to being powerless before RBPS Core Value and process safety expertise. Process Safety Cultural Communication: All superiors at the hierarchy shall by example become powerless with regard to his individual power or authority before RBPS Core Value and process safety expertise. Communication Direction: the communication was originated from bottom upward the hierarchy, from Bian Ques eldest brother to his patients, to Bian Ques patients, especially of Duke Cais counterparts, highest strategically. Successful upward communication signified that the communications from all directions could be possible and confront nothing but timely and substantively positive responses. Organizational Decision Making: CCPS ever published its Tools for Making Acute Risk Decisions with Chemical Process Safety Applications in 1994. From perspective of Bian Que & his brothers, however, at every stage of a disease, the necessary pending decision should be deemed as acute from a strategic point of view, the earlier the better, regardless

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of the severity of the disease. And in order to elevate along with the caliber of process safety culture excellence, the perspective and craftsmanship of Bian Ques eldest brother should be pursued organizationally and finally embraced. Organizational Change: potential organizational change should be highest strategically and constantly assessed in light of RBPS Core Value and Process Safety Cultural Communication. 3.5 Creative Minority & Dominant Minority the Essence of Greatest Lessons Learned & Experience of the Process Safety Core Value Atlas Historian Arnold Toynbee used to mention two groups of people when he commented on the fate of civilizations, one of which was called creative minority and the other namely dominant minority [30]. And in the context of process safety culture and management, like Bian Que, his brothers, Moses etc, whoever the Process Safety Expertise inspired counterparts should be our creative minority, whereas board of directors, executive management and operation managers should play the role of dominant minority, who inevitably need first to pass a curriculum of RBPS Core Value and Process Safety Cultural Communication. And the essence of the lessons learned and experience of East and West of the ancient time are extracted and presented within the following 4 ethical and highest strategic imperatives with regard to RBPS Core Value. 1st Ethical and Highest Strategic Imperative: The creative minority, as the final defense line, shall embrace, get empowered directly from, and convey the message of, the RBPS Core Value through Process Safety Cultural Communication, for certainty, without need of any prior permission from any dominant minority. And any attempt or behavior of seeking a prior permission to do it would kill the message of RBPS Core Value. 2nd Ethical and Highest Strategic Imperative: The dominant minority, i.e. board of directors, executive management and operation managers etc, shall embrace, and convey the message of, the RBPS Core Value through Process Safety Cultural Communication, mainly with his powerlessness and tameness inwardly and outwardly before RBPS Core Value, reflected from their words and behavior universe. 3rd Ethical and Highest Strategic Imperative: Corporate functions of Strategy, Legal and Human Resource etc shall embrace, and convey the message of, the RBPS Core Value through Process Safety Cultural Communication, mainly with their strategic involvement and intervention to process safety leadership planning, assessment and organizational change (including board of directors, executive management, operation managers etc). And Final (4th) Ethical and Highest Strategic Imperative: The dominant minority, i.e. board of directors and executive management, shall have the RBPS Core Value as the ultimate purpose beyond the existence of the business and

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organization. And only in this way could the business objectives be realized steadily and organizational and societal potentiality fully unlocked.

4. Recommendations of the Landscape - A Blueprint for Evolution of Process Safety Culture and Management
4.1 Inherently Safer Approach - Anthropology and Intercultural Communication As one of cornerstones of humanity and social science, anthropology, along with intercultural communication, might be the most reliable approach to unlock the psychological, intellectual and communicative potentials for process safety culture and management, i.e. the life quality of the temples landlord or the universal design intent for the foundation of the building of process safety culture and management could only be reliably ensured from an anthropological approach. Compared to attaching a heart pacemaker, a transplanted strong heart often proves to be a better and life long strategic choice. And people could never be able to manage their value except through process safety cultural communication. And people could not be able to manage their value at all because their value manages these people. As Edward Hall emphasized in The Silent Language, culture is of unconsciousness or cultural unconscious [31], i.e. only yourself are unaware that you have exposed your actual value to others through your behavior. And similarly, we might say Process Safety Cultural Communication is also inherently of unconsciousness, and you really convey to others the message of your actual value, either good or bad.

4.2

Survival or Revival? - Core Value in Context of Global Operation & Globalization As our global village gets increasingly smaller and smaller due to globalization, RBPS Core Value would inevitably undergo its globalization along with global operations. And as reflected from some examples above of the core value atlas, process safety value might have been universally deeply rooted within the heart of almost all the cultures and civilizations. We do not just need a universal process safety value to convey, to spread, to dialogue and to survive, but also local cultural and traditional interpretations of process safety value to revive, the latter of which the author names process safety value glocalization. [32] The author recommends that the process industries and allied sectors should also promote, sponsor and participate into the glocalization of process safety value, which might in near future prove to be very beneficial to many corners of our global village.

4.3

Operator, Regulator, Board of Directors, Community Just a Game or a Just Game? As the dynamic mechanism and relationships between RBPS core value, Process Safety Cultural Communication and process safety culture and management become more attractive to some regulators and accumulate enough rationale, the game of strategy [33]

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among operator, regulator, Board of Directors, Community etc would come into a new era that inevitably would arrive in the future, sooner or later. The author recommends that the serious game players should get strategically prepared and become early birds. And that era should be a stage for the true process safety enlightened community, where the backward inhabitants feel more social and regulatory constraints, if not have to migrate. And I have to quote that saying of Sun Tzu again: Of old the expert in battle would first make himself invincible and then wait for the enemy to expose his vulnerability. For a serious game player, the first half of the saying could not be more meaningful. 4.4 Process Safety Cultural Paradox - only Core Value could solve the issue of loss of corporate memory [34] There has been a really great debate in recent years within process industries and beyond on how the black lessons and some significant near misses could be effectively learned from so that similar or perceivable catastrophic process safety accidents could be prevented from happening or being repeated. In the authors opinion, it is not an issue of intellectual forgetting within the mind of Bian Que or of his counterparts of current time within process industries and beyond, but rather an issue of repeated failure of organizational decision making process due to lack of a RBPS Core Value and its energetic process safety cultural communication. Individually, one persons value is very persistent and even determines who he is. And any attempt or determination to change his value might turn out to be a mission of a leaf to dig out the root of the tree. And from an organizational perspective, however, we could be more optimistic about a future solution which consists of a RBPS Core Value and Process Safety Cultural Communication. In other words, the real lesson to learn is that it was a strategic failure due to lack of a healthy RBPS Core Value, rather than a technical one. And the author recommends that only through a combination of a RBPS Core Value and sound Process Safety Cultural Communication could the issue of loss of corporate memory be solved. And furthermore, the memory is not limited to corporate, but also extended to industries; not limited to contemporary, but also extended to ancient time. 4.5 Suspect or Patient? - Process Safety Audit & Process Safety Culture Assessment As the implications of RBPS Core Value and Process Safety Cultural Communication become more manifest within process industries and beyond, the traditional scope of process safety audit might evolve to become more diagnostic and strategic oriented. And not only the temple soundness would be assessed and ascertained but also the landlord health and his livelihood are assessed, diagnosed and taken care of so that the original architect who does the audit has to become more versatile to be able to work as medical doctor and sociologist simultaneously during the structural assessment of the temple . And process safety culture assessment might become a name for the future audit or diagnostics to the core value and process safety cultural communication.

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And whenever some catastrophic process safety accident occurs some familiar elements of the traditional process safety management would become strange again to process industries and beyond, in light of RBPS Core Value and Process Safety Cultural Communication, however, we know why i.e. all of these elements such as process safety reporting, process safety audit, risk assessment etc are of process safety cultural communication, whose primary purpose is to convey the message of the actual core value, either risk based or not at all. And RBPS Core Value and Process Safety Cultural Communication might become 2 new elements for 4 original pillars, the latter of which, however, do not consist of the former but rather the former encompass the latter. And as attached, we might call it RBPS Egg.

The Temple (4 pillars) Figure Source: CCPS, Process Safety Boot Camp, contributed by David Guss, Nexen Inc. Copyright 2010 AIChE and used with permission

5. Conclusion
Lets look back and account a little bit of the journey we spent together. At the beginning, we visit CCPS Risk Based Process Safety Temple or 4 pillars, where the curiosity of the there-should-be landlord or RBPS core value and his life quality or Process Safety Cultural Communication are stimulated and warmed up with the concepts of value, culture and cultural communication etc. And then we travel back to the ancient time of East and West over 2,000 years before, where a few pieces of anecdote of the ancient landlords or core values and the quality of their life or Process Safety Cultural Communication are told and meditated.

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And then the landscape of the future evolution of the process culture and management is naturally found by all the visitors. And we might name the new landscape a Risk Based Process Safety Egg, or original 4 pillars encompassed within 2 new universes: the larger one is RBPS Core Value and the smaller Process Safety Cultural Communication. And it seems that a new era of the true process safety enlightenment is knocking at our doorThere is no power, authority or governance on process safety except on behalf of process safety expertise....

6. References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] Atherton, John & Gil, Frederic & Center for Chemical Process Safety, Incidents that Define Process Safety, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2008, pp.1-2. Hopkins, Andrew, Lessons From Longford, CCH Australia Limited, 2000, pp. v and 2. Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Report Volume 1 Aug 2003, US Government Printing Office, 2003, p.9. Center for Chemical Process Safety, Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007, pp.39-43. B.P. U.S. Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel, The Report of the B.P. U.S. Refineries Independent Safety Review Panel, 2007, pp. i, xii-xiii, xvi and 249-250. Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety, 2007, pp. xlix-l, li-lv, 1-17 and 19-35. Kadri, Shakeel H. and Jones, David W., Nurturing a Strong Process Safety Culture, 20th Annual CCPS International Conference, AIChE Spring Meeting, Atla, April 2005 Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Report Volume 1 Aug 2003, US Government Printing Office, 2003, p.179. Lessons From Longford, 2000, p.139. Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Report Volume 1 Aug 2003, US Government Printing Office, 2003, p.200. Weick, Karl E. & Sutcliffe, Kathleen M., Managing the Unexpected, Jossey-Bass, 2007, p.1. Hopkins, Andrew, Lessons From Longford, 2000, pp. 139-142. Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety, 2007, pp.39-43 and 46. Hofstede, Geert, Cultures Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2008, pp.911. Cultures Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations, 2008, p.29 Cultures Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations, 2008, p.83

[15] [16]

GCPS 2013 __________________________________________________________________________

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Center for Chemical Process Safety, The Business Case for Process Safety, AIChE, 2006, p.4. Sun-Tzu and Li, Ling and Ames, Roger T., The Art of Warfare, Zhonghua Book Company, 2012, p.35. Hall, Edward T., The Silent Language, Anchor Books, 1990, p.186. same with [14] Hopkins, Andrew, Lessons From Longford, 2000, p. 122. Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety, 2007, p.39. Hanfei & Zhang, Jue, Han Feizi and Its Commentary, Shanghai Guji Press, 2007, pp.234236 Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety, 2007, pp.39-66. Holy Bible New Revised Standard Version, China National TSPM & CCC, 2002, pp.84150. (Exodux) Al-Hilali, M. T. & Khan M. M., The Noble Quran English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran, 1419 A.H. (1998-1999), pp.516-528 (The Narration) Holy Bible New Revised Standard Version, China National TSPM & CCC, 2002, pp.517567. (1 Kings) Al-Hilali, M. T. & Khan M. M., The Noble Quran English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran, 1419 A.H. (1998-1999), pp.504-515 (The Ants) He-Guanzi (same time with Han Feizi), He Guanzi, Chapter Sages in Society (Shixian) Toynbee, Arnold J., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_of_History#Universal_state Hall, Edward T., The Silent Language, Anchor Books, 1990, pp.vii, viii and x. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glocalization Dixit, Avinash K. and Nalebuff, Barry J., Think Strategically, W. W. Norton, 1993 Guidelines for Risk Based Process Safety, 2007, p.685.

[27] [28]

[29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34]

Author Note: Steven graduated with a B.S. from Harbin University of Science & Technology (HUST) in 1999, and he holds a membership of International Association for Intercultural Communication Studies (IAICS).