One of the fastest ways to empower yourself, your team or your organization is to establish registers for value and accomplishment. Unlike the physical world of objects, value and accomplishment don't exist except via language and conversation. Registers for value and accomplishment can take many forms such as visual displays, audiotapes, videotapes, pieces of art, etc.

Here is a way to get started. Establish a schedule for registering the value of what you are at work on weekly or monthly. Have each person answer the following questions both individually and as a team:

• What result did you produce?
• Who benefited?
• What did this result allow for?
• How did they benefit?
• What did this result make possible?
• What did this enable your organization to do differently?
• What future result(s) can now be generated?
• How did this result contribute to others' job performance?
• What are you able to do better or more easily?
• What is your organization positioned to do now?
  

Once you have recorded these answers identify to whom would it make a difference or add value to communicate the responses.

Remember to communicate the responses consistent with the commitments and concerns of the receiver.

Be sure to pause and notice the difference that it makes for you to produce these results given your commitments and concerns. You are a very important customer for yourself.

The secret to a satisfying life is recognizing where you spent your life's energy and what difference was made 'on your shift.' Registering value and accomplishment is your responsibility and a gift you not only give others but also a gift you give yourself.