BUMGT 6927: Analysis of Creativity and Innovation in Organizations

This essay examines the theory and practice of creativity and innovation within the telecommunications giant, Telstra. The paper explores critical thinking, leadership, and innovation strategies, using Telstra as a case study to highlight the ingredients of successful innovation. It delves into Telstra's organizational structure, T22 strategy, and collaborations with other organizations, such as Facebook, to illustrate how creativity and innovation are fostered. The essay discusses the challenges of critical thinking, spot innovation, and provides a personal reflection based on the assignment. The paper emphasizes the significance of leadership, focus, creativity, invention, and entrepreneurship in driving innovation and achieving organizational success, providing insights for telecommunication industries globally.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
Analysis of personal and organizational styles
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note:

1ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
Executive Summary
The main objective of this paper is to focus on the concept of critical thinking and innovation in
an organizational setting. The organization which will be analyzed in this paper is Telstra as this
organization is maintaining a great market reputation over the years due to the application of
critical thinking and innovation. This report will be having numerous segments and each of the
segments will be having its own significance to find the reliability of the paper. The key
ingredients which are responsible for the success of this telecommunication organization over
the years will be discussed in a descriptive manner in the paper. The challenges of critical
thinking for an organization will be also conferred in the paper. The spot innovation which is
currently under development in this organization will be also revealed in the paper as well. This
report with conclude with a personal reflection part based on the lesson learned from this
assignment and its application.

2ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................. 3
Ingredients of successful innovation for Telstra...........................................................................6
Leadership............................................................................................................................... 6
Focus....................................................................................................................................... 7
Creativity.................................................................................................................................. 8
Invention.................................................................................................................................. 8
Entrepreneurship..................................................................................................................... 8
Challenges of critical thinking......................................................................................................9
Spot innovation in action..............................................................................................................9
Personal Reflection...................................................................................................................... 9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 10
References................................................................................................................................ 11
Appendix.................................................................................................................................... 13
Mind Map............................................................................................................................... 13

3ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
Introduction
The notable determination of the paper is to highlight the theory and practice of creativity
and innovation in Telstra which is the biggest telecommunication organization in Australia.
Established in the year 1975, this telecommunication organization has always promoted
creative thinking skills of their internal stakeholders such as their Chief Operations Officer
(COO). Innovation has been a part and parcel in the production and the marketing departments
of this organization over the years (Telstra, 2019). Telstra always tends to update their
organizational goals and settings according to the current conditions by serving innovative
products to each of their consumers all over the world. The current COO of Telstra said that her
company uses the creative thinking skills of the business consultants in order to make any
important business decisions for the organization. The unresolved problem which exists in this
organization is always examined with an innovative approach each time (Muenjohn &
McMurray, 2018). At the same time, it can be also said that Telstra takes ideas and concepts
from the other major telecommunication organizations in the world such as Vodafone.
Creativity: It is defined as the original idea behind creating something new. Creativity is
required in most of the business organization in order to attract the potential consumers of the
business.
Telstra is very much creative in terms of the services provided by them in the last 5
years such as the implementation of the key indicators which helps in understanding the
performance of each stakeholders (AM & Dwyer, 2017). The efficiency of the internal
stakeholders of the organization can be tracked by the management team of the stakeholders
using the performance indicators. Along with the performance indicators this organization there
are creative sales and marketing strategies adopted by this organization as well.
Innovation: It is defined as the process of a continuous change which can result in the
growth and development in a business organization. Innovation or re-arrangement are very
much important for re-structuring.
The transformation and success of Telstra for the years is the result of their continuous
change within their working environment such as the innovative television advertisements and
the application of the Internet of things in the production room of this organization (Souto, 2015).
A new business function has been launched in Telstra which is a combination of the
technologies used in the corporation and Internet of Things.

4ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
Research and Insights of Telstra
Telstra has collaborated with more than 150 business organizations from all over the
world; each of those business organizations contributes significantly to the business growth of
Telstra over the years. Major social media organizations such as Facebook are one of the
subsidiary organizations for Telstra. Critical thinking skills of organizations like Facebook are
also used in the working environment of Telstra so that they can offer better quality service to
each of their consumers all over the world.
The concept of “Friction Frontier” was incorporated by Facebook in Telstra in order to
improve the Telco business of Telstra. The critical thinking business consultants of Facebook
studied and understood the importance of managing the local market conditions for most of the
global business organizations. For this reason, both the organizations collaborated in order to
remove friction from their important business functions. The removal of the frictions has resulted
in smooth e-commerce transactions which helps in improving the transparency of their Telco
business. Quicker access to information about any product is also one of the main contributions
of Facebook in Telstra. The decision making regarding the purchasing of the raw materials for
the Telco business also improved due to the critical thinking approach for each of the involved
stakeholders of this organization.
Telstra faces huge threat coming from the other similar telecom organizations in
Australia in every aspect however, the collaboration with the Facebook Corporation is an added
advantage for this telecommunication organization, as they can promote any new and
innovative product in Facebook and get the review from all the viewers of the promotional
campaign. The application of the critical thinking skills of the decision making bodies of Telstra
can be understood from the above discussion.
The behavior of the consumers of this organization is also tracked using the critical
thinking skills adopted by the marketing team of this organization over the last 10 years as the
needs and requirements of the consumers of each country are very much different from each
other. Several change management models are applied in the working environment of this
corporation in order to track the mobility of the strategic team of this corporation. Telstra has a
unique strategy development team to look after the need of the young consumers. The decision-
making abilities of all the operations manager of each of the regional offices are very much
important to incorporate the critical thinking skill in every department of the organization. The
application of the critical thinking skills in Telstra has resulted in growth in Telstra retail, Telstra's

5ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
global enterprises, Telstra operations, Telstra wholesale and several other important business
functions. The total external income and the changes in these departments after the application
of critical thinking skills is presented in the below diagram
Figure 1: Results of the application of critical thinking in Telstra
(Source: Baškarada & Koronios, 2018)
According to Buh & Indihar Štemberger (2015), the five critical thinking skills which can
help every telecommunication organization are transformation of the knowledge of the internal
stakeholders of the organization, prediction power of the strategy team in different locations,
logical reasoning ability of the sales and marketing team, information seeking ability of both the
external as well as the internal stakeholders of the organization, discriminating, applying both
the global as well as local needs of the consumers and the analyzing procedures between the
major business functions of this organization with the consumers and the distributing team of
the organization (Bašić, Vlajčić, & Novak, 2018). The researcher of the paper mentioned that
understanding the links between the ideas and concepts are very much important to enhance
the quality of service offered by the telecommunication industries. The relevance of the
business arguments has been deliberately highlighted by the researcher of this paper. Along

6ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
with the business arguments, the papers also suggest the need for appraising arguments and
identify the inconsistencies of the business functions and the associated stakeholders in an
organized manner. The prime benefit of this paper is that it helps both the readers of this
document as well as the decision makers of all the major telecommunication industries all
around the world understand the importance of producing innovative products with the help of
the critical thinking skills o0f the internal stakeholders of the organization. However, along with
the above-discussed benefits, the papers have a constraint as well as it does not present a case
study example to support all the discussions made in the paper. The paper is written entirely in
a generalized manner considering the current trends of the global telecommunication
organizations. Thus, the paper can be very much beneficial to understand the insights and the
need for maintaining critical thinking skills for most of the global business organizations.
Ingredients of successful innovation for Telstra
There are lots of important ingredients which have resulted in the growth of this
telecommunication organization over the years. This unit of the paper will be putting the light on
a few of those ingredients and state their contribution in enhancing the business reputation of
this corporation (Gebhardt, 2017). The following paragraph can be beneficial for the readers of
this document to understand the contribution of each of the ingredients.
Leadership
The entire organizational structure of Telstra was modified in the year 2018 due to the
T22 strategy. The role of the organizational leaders was very much important to deal with the
complexities of this change. The structure and the leadership capabilities of the internal
stakeholder of this organization were very much important to bring this innovative change. As a
result of a critical thinking procedure over the years, it was found that there are numerous
complexities in the major business functions of Telstra such as delay in delivering of the
products and management of the new technologies which are needed in the production
laboratories. The commitments which are made to the consumers are not always fully kept by
this organization; as a result, the organization was facing business loss (Aitken, 2017). The
leadership qualities of the floor manager and the head of operations in each of the branch of this
organization are very much important for the implication of the products offered by this
organization in terms of the Television Pay and data packets.

7ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
Focus
Innovation has always been a huge reason behind the success of this organization over
the years. At the same time, it can be also said that this organization has successfully
understood and implemented the concept of critical thinking skills. The primary focus of this
corporation is T22 strategy; this operational strategy can be very much beneficial for the
organization to deal with the complaints coming from the consumers of this organization
(Hoffman, 2017). The difficulties faced by the consumers while using the digital innovations of
this corporation will be significantly reduced using the T22 strategy (Buh & Indihar Štemberger,
2015). The drive performance of the entire IT infrastructure of this organization can be improved
with the help of this strategy, at the same time it can be also said that this strategy will help in
bringing transparency to the business structure of this organization. The cost reduction program
and the portfolio management service facilities of Telstra can be also managed in a professional
manner using the T22 strategy. The following diagram can be very much important to
understand the importance of the T22 strategy.
Figure 2: T22 strategy
(Source: Gerrand, 2017)

8ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
Creativity
Considering the constant disruptions in the telecommunication industries Telstra has
successfully found creative ways to foster innovation throughout Australia. The national gallery
of Victoria collaborated with Telstra and successfully updated the multimedia technology (Chen
& Chang, 2015). The developers of Telstra provided all the technical facilities to the national
gallery and helped in transforming them into a bigger organization. This collaboration not only
helped Telstra but also showed the other telecom agencies the path of utilization of creative
thinking skills.
Invention
The creative thinking skills of the strategic team of Telstra can be seen, as this
organization is serving a wide range of products to each of the consumers over a long period of
time. The quality of service offered by this organization is also improving each day due to the
quality analysis team which is present in every office of this corporation. The users of mobile
devices can select any plan for their devices (Åstebro & Serrano, 2015). The television facilities
such as the Foxtel is one of the major service provided by this organization, where the
subscribers can select, view and pay according to their needs and requirements (Lerner & Hunt,
2018). Telstra bundle is the other exciting product offered by this organization along with that
this organization also provides the broadband facility with zero or negligible interaction (Park,
2017). Mobile devices are also provided by this organization which is used both for personal use
as well as in other small and medium-sized enterprises.
Entrepreneurship
Telstra has successfully revolutionized the entrepreneurship spirit among all the other
major telecommunication organizations of Australia. Creative thinking skills and innovative
measures such as the Telstra Innovation Challenge (TIC) are frequently carried out by this
organization to bring out the technical potential of the consumers. During these programs,
Telstra announces their involvement with their major subsidiary organizations and the latest IT
technologies which are increasingly used in their laboratories such as the big data analysis and
IoT based devices such as the wireless temperature sensors (Gerrand, 2017). The supply chain
logistics and difficulties of transportation are quoted in these innovative programs. Ideas and
concepts from all over the world are readily accepted in this program irrespective of the
educational qualification and experience (Dentchev et al., 2016). Telstra brings great
opportunity for everyone outside their business environment to show off their critical thinking

9ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
abilities so that the mission and vision of the organization are accomplished. The winners of this
challenge get an opportunity to design a prototype of a real-world mobile application using the
organizational assets and the required technologies.
Challenges of critical thinking
There are numerous problems faced by Telstra while applying critical thinking skills
regarding any decision making in their working environment. This section of the paper will be
focusing on a few of those challenges faced by Telstra. One of the primary challenges faced by
this organization is the rate of delivery of their new products to the nearest market or vendor
even after a live product launching event on a social media problem (Campbell, 2017). To
resolve this issue, Telstra uses the critical thinking skills of all other their external stakeholders
such as the distributor of the products and the third parties who are involved in the distribution of
the products. New product distribution techniques are often implemented by the sales team of
Telstra using critical thinking skills, however it can be said that this business approach may
have a very negative impact on the net profitability of this organization due to the lack of
collaboration of the third parties, distributors and the internal stakeholders of their warehouses
(Dhenin & Correa, 2017). Critical thinking skills should have been successful to bring out the
best from each of the stakeholders of the organization but these disruptions are itself becoming
a big challenge for this organization.
Spot innovation in action
Telstra has advanced specifications in terms of their innovative services which are
offered to the consumers of this corporation. The development of the 5th generation wireless
technology is in full swing in the laboratories of this organization. Cohesive techniques are
readily used by the developers of Telstra while developing any new innovative product for their
consumers (Guo, Su, & Ahlstrom, 2016). The spot innovations of Telstra revolves around the
last updated requirement of their clients, it also considers the current trending innovations from
other similar organizations all around the world (Rusko, Härkönen, & Liukkonen, 2016). The
spot innovation of Telstra depends mostly on the collaboration policy adopted by this
organization with other reputed organization such as Fox Sports.
Personal Reflection
The paper was very much important to understand the importance of creative thinking
skills and innovation in an organizational setting. Based on the discussions of this paper it can

10ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
be said that every successful business organization uses critical thinking skills and innovative
products to their clients in order to improve the net profitability of the business as well as to have
a competitive advantage over the rival organizations.
Based on the organizational style followed in Telstra it can be revealed that this
organization successfully applies innovation in both external and internal business functions.
The impact of innovative strategies adopted by successful telecommunication organizations
such as Telstra which leads them to higher overall success can be also echoed from the paper.
The techniques which are useful to increase the efficiency and the productivity of this
organization can be also reflected from the paper as well. The importance of customer support
and innovations for any global organization can be also reflected from this paper.
The insights gained from this assignment can be applied in the working environment of
any telecommunication corporation irrespective of its infrastructure and resources as the paper
cover up all the essential aspect of being a successful telecommunication organization.
Conclusion
The insights of Telstra were described in a descriptive manner in the initial stages of the
paper. The importance of collaboration in order to provide innovative service to the consumers
of telecommunication industry can be determined from the paper as well. The paper
successfully presents the impact of applying critical thinking with the help of a pictorial diagram.
The opinion of the researcher about the importance of critical thinking in a global business
organization can be also determined from the paper. The key ingredients which are responsible
for the successful innovations for Telstra are described thoroughly in the paper. The challenges
which are generally faced by the telecommunication organizations while applying the critical
thinking skills can be understood from this paper as well. The spot innovation 5G which is
currently under development phase can be also concluded from the paper as well. The learning
from the assignment is described in the concluding unit of the paper.
Thus, the paper can be very much helpful for the readers of this document to understand
the need for maintaining critical thinking human resource for any global telecommunication
business organization such as Telstra.

11ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STYLES
References
Aitken, A. (2017). Driving Project Delivery from the Top Down: Engaging Executive Leaders as
Project Sponsors.
AM , F., & Dwyer, N. (2017). Copyright in databases in Australia.
Åstebro, T., & Serrano, C. (2015). Business partners: Complementary assets, financing, and
invention commercialization. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy,, 228-252.
Bašić, M., Vlajčić, D., & Novak, I. (2018). Internationalisation modes in the Australian
telecommunications industry: the influence of different innovation types. International
Journal of Business and Globalisation, 96-119.
Baškarada, S., & Koronios, A. (2018). The 5S organizational agility framework: a dynamic
capabilities perspective. . International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 26(2), 331-
342.
Buh, B., & Indihar Štemberger, M. (2015). Critical success factors for different stages of
business process management adoption–a case study. Economic Research-
Ekonomska Istraživanja,, 243-257.
Campbell, I. (2017). Telstra's future mode of operation: Network transformation between 1992
to 1993. Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy.
Chen, M., & Chang, Y. (2015). Creativity cognitive style, conflict, and career success for
creative entrepreneurs. Journal of Business Research, 906-910.
Dentchev, N., Baumgartner, R., Dieleman, H., Jóhannsdóttir, L., Jonker, J., & Nyberg, J. (2016).
Embracing the variety of sustainable business models: social entrepreneurship,