In November 2018, Hearts Dental opened the door for our first customers. What an exciting new venture for us! Everything was new, and everything was a challenge. We were overwhelmed, and we did not have time to pause or think. Three months into the new chapter, the team decided to sit down and create a core values list.

“Ok guys, what kind of dental clinic do we want to be?”

At the time, the honest answer was… “we’re not sure.”

We hadn’t had time to create a culture. We didn’t do things a certain way yet. We were like toddlers, figuring out how to walk.

We lacked conviction. And more honestly, we lacked identity.

So, after a few awkward attempts… we put that conversation on pause.

Then, in June 2019, six months later, we picked it up again, this time with a twist.

What we’ve come to realise is that:

you don’t create core values, you discover them.

The whole team sat down together and spent 4 hours writing down everything we believed in about Hearts Dental. We dug deep into our professional beliefs, individual psyche and personal identities.

This time, it was easy. We weren’t trying to copy and paste some big company and sounding smart. We were simply discovering ourselves and what we believe in.

Out of that exercise, we solidified five core values that resonated with everyone. We’ve stuck with them for 12 months now, which is a good sign.

We are still open for changes and improvements; but for now, these are the 5 principles that guide us every day.

1. be passionate – do everything with passion, or not at all
2. take initiative/be proactive – think ahead and come up with solutions
3. teamwork – none of us is as smart as all of us
4. growth mindset – challenge yourself to do better everyday
5. customer focused – treat every customer like a VIP

FINAL THOUGHTS

Like any industry these days, customers are spoilt for choices. There are hundreds of dentists in every metropolitan city; there are 14 dental clinics in Blackburn just alone. So what makes us stand out? Ultimately it is our people. Awesome people. Our dentists and our supporting staff are our stars, our walking billboards for what we believe in, the reasons we got out of bed every morning, day after day, week after week, months after months: making a positive change in someone’s life, through the delivery of first class dental care.