Better result with collaboration

Whereas the experienced volunteers felt that they have been working for the Steelers organization for so long that they all ready know everyone in the organization and felt their problem was more in communication, the newer volunteers also saw the problem in communication but they connected the problem to people not being acquainted with each other. They talked about how not knowing people, has made volunteering harder for them since they do not know to whom they can turn to for help. They all agreed that talking to a person or asking help from someone you already know is easier than asking help from a stranger. Even though most of the time they received help from whomever they had asked it from, they also talked about situations when they had been left without help.

“Last summer I called and sent messages to this person. We had to arrange helping hands to the games. Even though I had talked to her almost dozen times, I still cannot recognize her if she walks past me on the field.”

“It is so much easier for me to work with XX since I have known him for so many years. I know from the direction of his feet if he is in a bad mood or not. I am not saying that it is possible to know everyone that well, but it would be nice to at least know their faces so that I know who to say hello to if I see them somewhere.”

Appreciative inquiry aims to develop the organizational culture into more positive, so that the feeling of belonging and communality would be stronger inside the organization (Froman, 2010, p. 62). In a situation where a new volunteer feels like he or she is left alone without help, it increases stress and makes the person feel uncomfortable. Since a volunteer is not in a paid relationship to the organization, it is really easy for the volunteer to stop volunteering. Communality and feeling of belonging can not be reached if a person feels discomfort in the given job. For this reason it is extremely important to make sure that all new volunteers are welcomed and they get the support that they need in order to be successful in their job. It is not possible for people to utilize their strengths if they are constantly out of their comfort zone and feel insecure (Luthans & Youssef,

2007). The respondents told that they felt like they had to “survive” and “invent the wheel” on their own, which are not the most positive terms. However they felt that this experience had made them grow and take responsibility of their work. When asked how they could improve the situation in the future, they immediately said that they want to make sure that no one else has to go through the same situation and that they want to be there to help others, which is in the spirit of appreciative organizational development.

“I asked my friend to join the club and I promised her that I will be there to help her every step of the way.”

“I will make it my business to make sure that in the future we will have proper familiarization to all new volunteers. It is not just a question of constancy but it is also a safety issue.”

This group also recognized the difficulty in communicating and their conversation went along the lines with the previous group´s discussion. For this group it was not so much the overflow of messages that bothered them, but they felt that people used a negative way of speaking. They felt that it was hard to ask help from the more experienced people since they often replied that they do not have time to help or that the instructions can be found from a web site.

“I cannot understand why it is so hard to help when I ask for help. I might get asked a question that I do not know the answer to and the person asking me is expecting an immediate response. At that time it would be great that the person I turn to for help could say that `let´s look at this together` instead of replying ` look it up from the Internet`.”

At this point the tone of the conversation started to be a bit negative and therefore I wanted to stir the conversation into a more positive and possibility centric way of

thinking. In the spirit of appreciative inquiry I asked if the participants could think of why they do not get help and what could be done to help the situation. They all agreed that the lack of help could be due to not knowing each other well enough so that it is easier to just ask the person to look it up instead of working for the problem together. They quickly started to innovate and get excited about the possibility to organize events that the whole club could attend. They felt that the good team spirit that exists within the Home Game Organizing Committee is due to their personal relationships since they do everything together and therefore have cohesion and a culture of helping each other. They felt that the key to a better communication could be found by getting to know one another better.

“You automatically speak more politely to another person if you know them better and it is harder to say no if someone asks you for help. I would love to see the players say hello to us when they come to the field. After all we have been working for five hours before the players even get to the field, so it would be nice to get recognized at least in a form of a hello.”

The appreciative inquiry aims to do just that; to turn the negative feelings into positive innovations that lead into positive excitement and possibility centric way of thinking (Lehtimäki et al, 2013). Like in the first group, this group also felt that they now have a solution to their problem and they immediately started discussing who could do what to set up some type of activity for the whole club. Their excitement could be seen in the way they spoke, the way they leaned towards each other and started planning for the future.

They used positive expressions such as “how have we not done this before?”, “I am going to start working on this straight away when I get home.” The individual interviews went very much on the same lines as the group interview. Even though the questions were asked the same way, the individuals raised the same topics as the group participants did, but when it came to finding solutions on how to make things better, the group focused more on finding solutions for the club where as the individuals talked about what they can personally do to improve things. Therefore the appreciative aspect of people coming

together to solve common problems and participate in the development process came true, since the participants felt that they had been heard, that they had made a difference and been included in the decision making process (Reed, 2007). However the feeling of belonging and team work skills would have been endorsed even more had all the newer members been part of the group interview.