On the 26th of November 2008 as you only heard a gaggle of 10 terrorists attacked the city of Mumbai what not to be called Bombay in India. They broke up into teams to attack a few dozen different locations one among those locations was the long-lasting beautiful 103 year old Taj
Palace Hotel in South Bombay for 3 nights two days. There was absolute havoc therein hotel guests were terrorized people wounded shot killed a gaggle of terrorists with automatic weapons plastic explosives and grenades and backpacks roam freely through.
This old hotel many folks many of you witnessed or saw a number of that coverage on television reception let's take a better look the evening of November 26 2008 was a typical busy Wednesday for the Taj more than 500 guests were registered at the hotel. Another 5 to 600 were attending functions in banquet halls or sitting down to dinner within the hotel's 10 restaurants shortly after 9 p.m. An explosion rocked the Leopold cafe just round the corner less than 200 meters from the Taj. Two young men pulled out automatic weapons and began firing crowds at the Gateway of India and along the road ahead of the Taj park many rushing the doors of the hotel within the ensuing chaos two heavily armed terrorists
circumvented the metal detectors and entered the lobby they were soon joined by the 2 attackers from the Leopold who broke through a back door 9.35 or 9.40 was the first call I got from one among my chefs and you think that some shooting is taking place an individual has been shot that outside my first phone then we had another gunshot and that i said I told him on the formerly I said he just closed all the kitchens all the restaurant goes they were banging the door they were alerting everyone begin otherwise we'll shoot you there have been few guests the rule you recognize they were scared and they came out by putting on job light.
And they started hitting then they started harassing them it had been no horrible things the whole senior was very scary we couldn't judge at that point q what's exactly happening within the or time it had been a literally ball situation you'll hear credit lobby around you'll hear the controller also we didn't know the scale of the attack we didn't know what exactly was happening where they were but at that moment there was total chaos my colleagues were trapped with guests in various places asking me more - what should we do next so picture what's happening inside that hotel there are 500 guests who are registered at that hotel tonight of 26th November there are a a further 600 approximately guests.
Who are in various restaurants attending various banquets and functions there are about 600 approximately staff members on duty that night young people many of them very young 20 30 year old a number of them had these staff members had only been working for a couple of years at this hotel many of them fathers and mothers the sole breadwinners in their families with with children reception expecting them one of the items.
We do not know tons about the detail about what happened there but one among the items we do know is that each one 600 of those employees knew all the rear routes they they knew the exits they knew the entrances they knew the hallways the kitchen galleys in other words they knew the way to get out and the way to get out fast all the research.
We've in psychology would tell us that the natural human instinct at a time of Terror like this is often to escape so think about it what what you'd do so once I teach this case study at Harvard I ask my students I say what percentage of these employees does one think fled and how many of them does one think stayed and their hazard guesses and and therefore the maximum they say that might stay would be maybe maybe 1 / 4 150 approximately you recognize but that's that is the maximum everybody.
Who can run away will run away well the truth of the matter is that no-one ran away all of them stayed actually a number of them not only stayed they hopped guests out and came back in have more guests it's a tremendous story these are a number of their stories the staff of the Taj stayed on duty throughout the siege calming frightened guests and assisting in their rescue many even came back inside after leading guests out of the building members of the hotels team of telephone operators originally evacuated voluntarily returned to their stations and stayed on all night they became the hub of communication at that time they were those calling every single guest room lecture the guests and telling them to remain and do not exit lock your door because the terrorists roamed the halls telephone operators instructed trapped guests to tug their key cards to turn off the illuminated occupied button within the hallway outside their doors.
The attack started at 9:30 within the evening - 4 o clock the Lansing guest calls i feel that speaks tons for a hotel under fire among the guests at the Taj that night were members of the global board of directors and senior management team of Unilever who had gathered alongside their spouses to honor incoming and outgoing CEOs so it was really elaborate chemicals mean and that was kind of the setting the mood that was formed there was laughter there was an ideal setting for a nostalgic farewell and an ideal setting for a nice welcome and that i heard what appeared to me which is an untrained ear like firecrackers inevitable we started getting these text messages and phone calls there have been gunman on the loose the sole logical thing to the worst oh he closed the doors and just stay put Mallika came to us and said within this problem we're unsure what exactly it has spread request all of you to get on the ground immediately.
The extent of common composure that the staff displayed was amazing was absolutely amazing because that the presence of mind to the advisors saying couples please separate don't remain an equivalent please just be in several corners of the room sixty-five lives at stake so can take an opportunity obviously we were in touch with security all the time i do know have tons of alcohol within the room so that helped a touch this went on the entire night to be worried on the ground with a hearts in her mouth with debris falling all around us the noises of you recognize firecrackers all around and every one through the things kept exposure kept coming to us.
If they want some water you would like something well I was scared but there was something more important to be done this went on till 4:00 or 5:00 within the morning when the room crammed with smoke so we had no choice but to seek out how to flee the entire corridor outside the hall was on fire get out the five guys were outside and they were dousing the hearth on the sixth block and that we happen to ascertain Mr. Tang downstairs is wrong so he kind of ushered the hearth guys to us we kind of climbed onto the ledge did some stuff which in today's normal D I wouldn't be ready to do but we kind of came onto the ledge climbed right down to the ladders which by then the hearth brigade people had come.
The staff insisted that we would go first guess would go first and they kept like that till all folks had come down then all of them came down well during a way because i used to be there I was taking care of the function i used to be in I was responsible I could are the youngest within the room and that i know at one point of your time i used to be the youngest within the room but i used to be still doing my job the easiest thing for our stuff to try to to at that point in time was to drop whatever.
They were running out of the hotel. Not one did that, not one I come from an army background, not myself but my father who was retired as a general within the army and he often wanted to say once. I was even appointed here because the general manager wont to often tell me that you simply are now just like the captain captain of the ship and that i think that is the way you think that that you simply know you are the captain of the ship and if you've got to be the last one believe and if it sinks to sink with it at some point our kitchen Brigade decided that it seemed like a lull in the thing and that they might be taken out from the rear of the kitchen through the fire exit to the rear road and our chefs had formed a person's chain to escort people within the darkness down those stairs and as many them were being evacuated somehow two of these terrorists need to know that this was happening and therefore the terrorists arrived there and saw these chefs lined up herding people away and there was mayhem they break away and that is where we lost we lost our biggest numbers there we had five or six of our chefs gunned down but they took the bullets that they risk their lives and just ensuring that gets to the safe i do not think we might have made it out of the hotel without the support the reassurance the constant you know service orientation that the staff provided doubtless which is why we'll still be so grateful to them i can not explain it there have been no manuals there have been no instructions for what should be wiped out the circumstances and so what seems to possess happened is individuals from the waiters to the managers of the restaurants.
All had this goal of let's get the guests to safety to reiterate 500 registered guests 600 guests in restaurants and banquets like that Unilever bore event that you simply just heard about 600 employees it's about 1700 folks that night off those 1,700 over 1,600 escaped safely only 34 people died off those 34 fully half with staff members of the hotel so when we were performing on this case study I asked senior management how this happened. Why this happened explains the behavior of their staff and these are children Milica chaga the banquet manager for the Unilever event whom you saw speaking 24 years old what explains it and you heard they can't explain it to senior management.
Mr. Ratan Tata a head of the Tata group of companies they owned the Taj Hotels he couldn't explain it so I teach this at Harvard I come I bring this case study back and that i teach this at the Harvard graduate school. As a case study of leadership from below you know. We teach usually about leadership as being something from the highest that filters down this is often often this is leadership from below it's just amazing and that i asked my students how does one explain it and they have plausible explanations for the behavior of the workers a number of them say well it must be the culture the national culture of India you recognize it must be something within the value system there that explains it and actually. There it seems that there's a worth or a belief that says a guest is to be treated like God. when a guest enters your home treat her or him like God atithi devo bhava in Sanskrit now the students say no no it isn't national culture. Its corporate culture if the Taj Hotels is owned by this family the Tata group. They need an extended history in India, a very benevolent human resource policy of a family of integrity in their business dealings. It is the national it is the corporate culture and others say no it isn't that this happened at a hotel it is the industry culture it's fatality employees are trained to serve customers so that's what is going on.
All of these are very plausible so along with another colleague. I made a decision to travel back into the Taj Hotel company records to try to know their human resource policy. Who were these people, who were this staff, where did they find them. How did they recruit them? How do they motivate them? How do they train them? and that i learned many really really intriguing things let me share within the interest of your time just three of them with you.
First about recruiting you recognize they recruit their first line their frontline employees from high schools not from the major cities not from Bombay or Delhi or Calcutta Oh Madras they recruit them from small towns Haldia, Chandigarh, Nashik, Tiruchirappalli small towns.
Second, they recruit students graduating for attitude not grades. They ask their Headmaster's or their teachers. Who are the scholars that you simply teach? Who have the foremost respect for older people for their parents for the teachers. They're not trying to find the people who do the simplest and grades but rather for attitude then training this is fascinating you recognize you've heard of brand ambassadors many companies many organizations perhaps. You simply represent train their frontline staff to be ambassadors for the brand for the company you recognize what they are doing at the Taj Hotels they train their frontline employees to be ambassadors for the customer for the guests it's extremely different it's counter intuitive they call them guest ambassadors they believe frontline employees should be the voice of the client of the custom of the guest to the corporate.
Third and maybe most importantly their motivation system their reward system incentives isn't just monetary they pay about average little above average therein hotel sector in India but the reward people with recognition personal recognition. So when an employee does something that delights customers and the guest writes a note within 48 hours that employee is recognized 48 hours they don't need to await a Diwali or a Christmas bonus it happens within 48 hours amazing in fact they won the international Hermes award for an innovation in human resource management for this stars program.
So let me accessible asking you to think a touch bit about the lessons that you simply deduct from this company distant on the opposite side of the planet the items that we will learn here in America that we will bring home that we will scale to American businesses American organizations things like the way customers are treated building a customer centric guest centric corporate culture organizational culture rethinking the connection the contract between employer and employee and finally let me accessible saying this is a tremendous inspirational story that something that was alleged to be a symbol of terrorism is today a beacon of hope many thanks .
This artical is written version of TED Talk by Mr.Rohit Deshpande who is Professor of Marketing At the Harvard Business School
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