By Jay Devers
It’s one thing for a CEO to have company values in his mind. It’s another thing to make them both visible and active – and it’s astonishing how values can impact an organization when you do the latter.
Ever since I assumed the role of CEO in 2013, I thought I knew what the company’s values were. In setting policy and leading the team day-to-day, I always had those values in mind.
But that’s the only place they really lived. In my mind.
In 2025, when the company went through the process of adopting the Entrepreneurial Operating System, one element of the process was to revise – as a team – the company values.
While the new ones were not far afield from the ones I’d always had in my head, they were better developed and easier for the team to embrace.
In case you’ve not seen our newest edition of values, here is what they are:
- People First. We care for each other and for our customers, and we do whatever it takes to look out for each other and for them.
- Be Flexible. When others stop, we get started. It’s great to have a plan – and we always do – but this is logistics, and you have to be ready to make adjustments at any moment. We are.
- Strive for More. Every day is an opportunity to improve. We love the process of becoming better versions of ourselves, and we love what that means for our customers.
- Have Fun Being Your Best. Doing well and helping others is a joyful experience at Bestway. We wish everyone had such a good time doing this.
These most certainly reflect where Bestway is today, and where we want to be going forward. It also reflects more of a consensus of those involved in the EOS process.
But what has really made these values come to life for us is that we’ve made them both visible and active in our day-to-day operations.
Our people love them because they provide an excellent point of guidance for how they handle their jobs. And our customers love them because they see these values reflected in how we deal with them – and in the results they get.
It’s also had the effect of sharpening our team – not only in terms of how we do things, but also in terms of who is on the team. As much as Bestway’s present leadership loves and embraces these values, they’re not for everyone. Once it became clear that we not only were adopting these but were going to make them our guiding lights every day, some team members decided Bestway was no longer for them.
That is OK for them and it’s OK with us. Working here is not a life sentence, and those who think they would fit in somewhere else are making the right choice by pursuing that option. It’s given us a more united, harmonious and high-performing team as a result. Our customers see that and comment on it often.
Recently we had an interesting seven-day period. A long-time team member, still with us at 73 years old, decided to retire. We celebrated this team member with all the honor and love you would expect for someone as beloved and valued as she was. The entire team joined in the occasion. That same week, we hired a young person of only 19 years old – full of promise, certainly needing training, but representing exactly the type of individual we knew fit our values.
We didn’t want this young person on the free agent market, so we made the decision to invest in the training that would help lead to a great professional career right here at Bestway.
It was the cycle of life in full view, right here amongst our team members. And it all came back to those values.
Our industry right now is experiencing a lot of swings and convulsions. I understand companies within the industry are doing the best they can.
But Bestway is on a steady pace, and our adherence to these company values is one of the primary reasons for that. There’s a lot to be said for embracing great ideals, making them visible and keeping your commitment to living them.
It’s making a big difference for us every day.