Public speaker and former journalist Graham Jones is an internet psychologist who runs a consultancy helping companies who need to make better use of their websites
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getbusiness: Achieve your goals with common purpose
By Graham JonesJuly 31, 2012
Like many people I didn’t get any tickets for the Olympics. In spite of applying in every ballot and trying for hours to buy tickets on the website, I haven’t been lucky enough to get what I want.
So, like many people in Reading I am grumpy as a result.
In fact, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, Reading is one of the grumpiest towns in Britain. Tosh...!
Statistics tell one story, our experience tells another.
For instance, because I had no tickets for the Olympics I decided I’d take my 12-year-old son on a day trip to London this week so we could go to Hyde Park and visit the Olympics on the “big screens”.
When we got to the fast-changing rail station at Reading we were met by hundreds of others who were either going to the Olympics, or like us were heading off to Hyde Park.
Were they grumpy? Were they heck? Everyone was smiling, chatty and clearly looking forward to a great day out – in spite of the trials of travel.
For businesses there is a message in all of this. Grumpiness disappears when a group of people have a common purpose, a shared goal or a joint desire. For some businesses you find that everyone who works there is smiling and positive. Often that’s because they all feel as though they are “in this together”; they have a common purpose.
But when you go into some other businesses, well, you do find those grumpy faces, the negative attitudes and the “couldn’t care less” feeling. Often those businesses are run by people who do not create that sense of share purpose, that community feeling as though it is “our firm”.
If you don’t want the supposed grumpiness of Reading folk to rub-off on your business, perhaps creating that “we’re all in this together” feeling is what you need.
Visit Graham's blog at www.grahamjones.co.uk
