Values and Your Inertial Guidance System
What's an inertial guidance system, and what's it got to do with (personal or corporate) values? Newton's 'first law of motion' ("a body in motion tends to stay in motion; a body at rest tends to stay at rest") describes how the physical phenomenon we call inertia behaves. Using inertia to describe our human behavior is much more than just a metaphor: it accurately describes our general reactions to change. Let me give a very brief explanation of what an inertial guidance system is all about (and why it's relevant to our behavior).
Interestingly enough, both the tendency toward movement and the tendency toward rest appear in the gyroscope. Its spinning disk tends to stay in motion, while the plane of its motion tends to stay at rest. There's an evident benefit in this, because, so long as you're holding a gyroscope, you have a relatively fixed point of reference, even when you can't reference anything else in your environment. It allows you to orient yourself in space and know when you're moving in any of the three spatial axes (pitch, yaw, or roll).
The second tool that people use in inertial guidance systems is an accelerometer. This is a device that measures acceleration (or rate of change) in velocity. With these two devices, a body in motion can sense changes in speed and direction and, using some kind of additional control device, make corrections to its flight path independently of any external landmarks. I hope that you're beginning to see how your core values can serve as an inertial guidance system for both your career and your personal life.
Practically speaking, our behavior derives from the personal choices we make from moment to moment. Regardless of how small or large the choices may be, taken all together, they determine our actions. No one (or no thing) can make us do anything without our permission. We always have a choice: regardless of how difficult the decision or how distasteful the options before us. When all these choices are taken together, patterns of behavior emerge. This happens because we tend to make many — if not most — of our choices automatically, with little or no thought. In similar circumstances, we tend to make similar choices.
This is where values show their importance. In most circumstances, you have very little time to weigh the pros and cons of the decisions that constantly face you. At those times, you have to rely on something else — your inertial guidance system — to keep you oriented in the right direction. You have chosen your core values specifically because they point you in the direction of your discerned purpose or destiny. If your discernment acts as your moral compass, pointing you in the right direction, then your values act as your moral inertial guidance system, keeping you on course through the turbulent waters of change and the challenges of decision-making.
Your ability to make the right decisions under pressure depends almost entirely on your core values. As a result, knowing those values explicitly and having them always in front of you can ultimately determine whether or not your choices prove effective in any given circumstance. Maintaining clearly-defined values also enables you to act consistently, since your behavior clearly indicates your values (or the lack of them). Most people adopt sets of values unconsciously, as they fall into patterns of decision-making based on their best guess about what the future will hold for them. For you who aspire to more, you need to make those values as conscious and as specific as possible.
When did you last do a values inventory on yourself? Can you name me your top three core values? Can you identify how you use these values in choice-making on an on-going basis? If you haven't taken a values inventory in a long while (or ever), or if you can't name them or explain how they influence your behavior, then you have some work to do. I strongly recommend getting together with a coach who can help you to discover and state your core values for yourself. Taking the time to do this will certainly help to make you a more decisive, consistent, and morally committed (and aligned) person.
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown
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