Shared Values Tool

(return to team tools or keywords)

Finding common ground

1. Diverse teams cope with professional differences, ethical codes and values.
2. This team tool assumes that shared values are good for long-term collaboration.
3. It is intended for use before the team starts working together.
4. It offers a safe and playful space for members to acclimatise to each other’s values.
5. It encourages individuals to voice their personal and professional values in a playful way.
6. It uses voting and negotiating to build a collective sense of identity.

Tool Process

1. The tool is intended to be facilitated by a non-team member, but can be used without.
2. Sessions takes place in the following order:

Generating values

• Each participant lists three values/qualities that are important to their practice.
• Make 3 copies of each value or quality (= 9 post-it notes).
• The post-its are displayed for all to see (arranged randomly in a circle.

Voting on values:

1. All participants grade each of the values (scoring one to four with 4 as the most favourable)
2. Someone (e.g. facilitator) counts the votes/scores and keeps a record.
3. Someone arranges the 2nd set of post-it notes in a new circle (clockwise with lowest scores at 12.00 o'clock).

Ranking the values:

1. Using discussion and negotiation, the group ranks the values/qualities as relevant to the task at hand.
   • a. Some entries may be combined and renamed - with the expressed consent of all involved.
   • b. Some entries may be omitted - with the expressed consent of all involved.
   • c. Some entries may be added - with the expressed consent of all involved.

Consolidating team values:

1. The group agrees/approves the 6 most important values to guide their teamwork.
2. Someone (e.g. facilitator) arranges the final 6 values on a post-it note circle on a new flipchart.
3. This shared value map represents the group's shared values parameters for working collectively.

Other possible supportive tools 

1. Using the 'No Buts' tool - a comical game for team meetings
2. The POUT tool - is a positivity-inducing alternative to SWOT
3. The catalyst - is a team role for energising outcomes
4. emulsifier - is a key role that mollifies interpersonal friction
5. see Lucky Teams

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Bibliography

• Maturana H. & Varela F. (1980), Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living. Reidel Publishing, (Boston).
• Olins, W., (1989), Corporate identity: making business strategy visible through design, Thames & Hudson, (London)
• Wittgenstein, L. (1953), Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell (Malden)
• Wittgenstein, L. (1942), Blue and Brown Books, Harper Perennial (London)