By Bethany Laursen, Stephen Crowley and Chad Gonnerman

2. Stephen Crowley (biography)
3. Chad Gonnerman (biography)
Have you ever been part of a team confronting a moral dilemma? Or trying to manage deep disagreements? For that matter, on a more down-to-earth level, how many times has your team tried to settle an agreed file naming convention? Many team troubles arise from value pluralism—members having different values or holding the same values in different ways. Below, we describe problematic value pluralism and suggest steps for dealing with it.
What are values, and how do they cause problems?
Here, we’re talking about a “value” as a desire (conscious or unconscious) that directs a person’s actions. It could be a guiding ideal or a whimsical preference, for example. Most of us have multiple values and over time we have organized them so that they provide us with guidance in most of the situations we encounter.
Forming a team, especially one made up of folks with diverse backgrounds, creates the challenge of managing the interaction of multiple values.