Selling the Need for PSM

Having selected the right sponsor and identified key advocates, the next task is to sell them on the concept of PSM—and the need for an effective system within your company. The first step in any selling situation is to know your audience. It is up to you to do some informal research on the person or people you want to endorse PSM look for insights into their business priorities, their track records with comparable initiatives, and their professional backgrounds. This will help you  

A good place to gain insight into your company s business priorities is your annual report, which, along with other shareholder communications (quarterly reports, proxy statements), probably contains some discussion of overall corporate goals. 

Examples and anecdotes are often useful an overreliance on personal experience or war stories loses attention. Similarly, an argument that tries to address every conceivable contingency, quirk, and variation will almost certainly fail to convince, because of simple overkill. 

This creates a far more compelling argument than a detailed process description or a theoretical discourse on why accidents happen— both of which may be interesting in themselves, but neither of which appeals directly to the listener s concerns. 

In companies in which senior management has strong operating experience, the concepts behind PSM are more likely to be self-evident. Similarly, some senior managers may have an ongoing interest in process safety and be knowledgeable about CCPS initiative. In these cases you can limit your preliminary discussion of PSM principles to a brief summary. 

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