The values of the project should be kept in mind for all team members because the goal may change.

The lack of explicit discussion about why and how the mission had to change created a wedge between participants. Reminding team members about the values underlying the project — promoting sustainability, urban livability, innovation — could have helped bring all of them back into the fold. Instead, the team found itself split between those enthusiastic about the new goal and those who clung to the old one.

Western philosophy has had two golden ages. The first was the remarkable explosion of thought in early Athens, sparked by Socrates and continued by Plato, Aristotle and their followers. Then came the great flowering in northern Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, when a diverse group of thinkers questioned received opinion and put their faith in reason in what is now known as the Enlightenment.