Strengthening Our Core

Last year was a year of growth and change here at OMA. We’re serving more students than ever. Our students keep improving and growing. We’ve added more staff to better serve you. And on a personal level, my family grew with the joyful addition of Max William Dolphin. What a year! And I’m so excited for what the rest of 2014 will bring.

You may already know that each month our entire team of teachers and staff gather to discuss and work on ways to better serve you. One of the challenges we’re embracing this year is strengthening the core of what we do. In fact, we’ve named 2014 The Year of Strengthening Our Core. It’s important that as OMA continues to grow we’re staying true to the spirit of what makes OMA special, honoring our commitments to you, and making your experience better and better. We’ll be reaching out to you more to gather your thoughts and feedback on how we can improve.

Over the past few months our team has been taking a close look at what we do, why we do it, and who we are. We view what we do here as more than just teaching music lessons. Our belief is that music is a vehicle for teaching life-skills and strengthening values that will enhance our students’ lives no matter where their future leads them.

This led us to clearly define a set of Core Values. These are our strongly held beliefs that build and guide OMA’s culture and our day-to-day actions. They’re also traits we hope our students will strengthen as a result of their involvement at OMA.

These values have always been a part of OMA since day one. They’ve been common themes in our discussions and decisions over the past decade. But until now, we haven’t explicitly defined them in writing. Because this is our first time publishing our Core Values, there may be some additions or changes made over the next year, but our goal is to ultimately decide on a final list of Core Values to serve as the framework for guiding our actions. Here are the phrases that represent our values:

Embrace the Challenge
Better Your Best
Own The Outcome
Show You Care
Do The Right Thing
We Are OMA

You can read a more detailed description of our Core Values here.

What are your thoughts? Are we on the right track? As always, your feedback is welcomed and encouraged. Please do let me know if you think we’ve captured the essence of OMA or if we’ve missed something that’s important to you. Feel free to send me an email or give me a call at 503-616-7161.

Looking forward to an awesome 2014!

Matthew Dolphin
Director, Oregon Music Academy