The ordinary heroes of Taj Hotel

On 26/11, rampaging terrorists killed some 150 people at 10 locations in South Mumbai, including 11 employees of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. The chief of the Tata group, Ratan Tata, which owns the Taj via group company Indian Hotels, during his visits to some bereaved families, met a woman who pointed to the garlanded figure of her late husband and said: "My children never realised their father was a hero." It took Tata by surprise, as he expected to encounter anger and sorrow. Designing an organization for extreme customer centricity requires several dimensions. The unusual hiring, training, and incentive systems of the Taj Group have combined to create an organizational culture in which employees are willing to do almost anything for guests. This extraordinary customer centricity helped, in a moment of crisis, to turn its employees into a band of ordinary heroes. There is no single factor that can explain the employees’ valor. 

• The tales of employee heroism included a banquet manager helping guests escape; telephone operators staying at their posts and alerting guests to stay indoors; and staff forming a human shield to protect guests at the time of evacuation.
• In a banquet hall, the 24-year-old banquet manager, Mallika Jagad, was managing an event quickly realized something was wrong and had the doors locked and the lights turned off. She asked everyone to lie down quietly under tables and refrain from using cell phones. She insisted that husbands and wives separate to reduce the risk to families. The Taj staff kept calm and constantly went around offering water and asking people if they needed anything else. Next morning, a fire started in the hallway outside, forcing the group to try to climb out the windows. A fire crew spotted them and, with its ladders, helped the trapped people escape quickly. The staff evacuated the guests first, and no casualties resulted. It was my responsibility and I was still doing my job - Jagad says.
• Forty-eight-year-old Thomas Varghese, the senior waiter at Wasabi, instructed his 50-odd guests to crouch under tables, and directed employees to form a human cordon around them. Four hours later, security men asked Varghese if he could get the guests out of the hotel. He decided to use a spiral staircase near the restaurant to evacuate the customers first and then the hotel staff. The Taj veteran insisted that he would be the last man to leave, but he never did get out. The terrorists gunned him down as he reached the bottom of the staircase. 
• When Karambir Singh Kang, the Taj Mumbai’s general manager, heard about the attacks, he immediately left the conference he was attending at another Taj property. He took charge at the Taj Mumbai the moment he arrived, supervising the evacuation of guests and coordinating the efforts of firefighters amid the chaos. His wife and two young children were in a sixth-floor suite, where the general manager traditionally lives. He tried to get to his family. It was impossible. By midnight the sixth floor was in flames, and there was no hope of anyone’s surviving. Kang led the rescue efforts until noon the next day. Only then did he call his parents to tell them that the terrorists had killed his wife and children. His father, a retired major general, told him, “Son, do your duty. Do not desert your post.” Kang replied, “If it [the hotel] goes down, I will be the last man out.”
• One executive chef at the hotel told the researchers that other groups have tried to hire him, but he refused to go for reason of - there is a connection with the guests. Generations have come to the Sea Lounge for matchmaking and weddings are celebrated in the Crystal Room; and waiters have been serving people for generations, the researchers were told.
• Harvard Business School (HBS), while making a case study on crisis management at the Taj during 26/11 were transfixed by the topic and were incredulous why employees were willing to give up their lives when they had the option to flee. 
• The uncommon valour of those who worked at the Taj convinced to research the human resource (HR) practices of the organisation. This was an extremely rare case of employees placing the safety of guests over their own well-being; and in the process some of them sacrificed their lives. 
• There was nothing in the manuals or any training given to these employees for an incident like this one. 
• A research into the HR practices of the company found three pillars of unique practices that explained the courage and actions of employees: A recruitment system that hires for character and not for grades; training programmes that not just mentor employees but also empower them to take decisions; and a reward programme that recognises employees on a real-time basis.
• The aspect that recruiting from small towns and recruiting for attitude rather than grades was unheard of.
• At a time when we are hearing so many stories of human frailty, mismanagement, moral turpitude, the Taj research is about ordinary people who became heroes. It's about leadership from everywhere, especially leadership from below. 
• The culture of employee-empowerment has been ingrained in the Taj workforce for some time now. The researchers found similar displays of gallantry at the at the Taj properties in Maldives at the time of tsunami in December 2004.
• Just like the character of a human being is the sum of choices made over the years, the culture of an organisation is the sum of values, policies and practices consciously fostered over the years.

Every crisis or war makes many ordinary men heroes

Ratan Tata Generosity