Published in Oil & Gas Executive, Volume 1, Number 1, 1998, pages 44-50. Traditionally, improved safety practices in the E&P industry have been in response to safety failures or emerging regulations, and the focus has been on injury statistics rather than on overall safety performance. Because of this approach, safety improvement in the E&P industry has been slow. To produce better results and to keep pace with quality and technology advancements in other areas of the industry, the safety culture in the E&P industry must change more quickly. Safety performance depends on modifying behavior. This occurs when the unsupervised employee is motivated to take correct action. Compliance manuals, safety staff, incentive awards, regulatory training, and new computer-based training do not truly modify the behavior of employees who are unsupervised nearly 100% of the time. Re-engineering individual safety processes or a company's management system does not produce the needed change. Consultants armed with new safety-management terminology and behavioral-observation programs with employee involvement have emerged in recent years. While proactive, these attempts are mostly superficial and fail to address the driving forces behind true behavioral change. Closing the Gap The companies discussed contrast a safety belief system aimed at quality with one aimed at mediocrity. The difference between the two collections of beliefs, values, and norms represents a cultural gap. This gap has more potential influence on the unsupervised behavior of employees and on management decisions than all training and packaged safety programs combined. It is this gap that potentially prohibits the E&P industry from making strides in safety that are commensurate with technological advances in the industry. The examples also show systematic ways to recognize and successfully change the safety culture and close this gap. The cases described reflect significant change in cultural value systems, which in turn, produced both short-term safety results and benefits in other areas. Managing safety well became the vehicle to manage everything well. The examples demonstrate that traditional safety values of the E&P industry can change. While the aim of most safety programs is behavior modification, this approach aims at fundamental feelings about safety. As the E&P industry enters the next century, this depth of change will be necessary with the incoming work force. Attacking these cultural beliefs to close the gap in elemental order as presented, combined with sound management processes, provides a guide to change.