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

Ratan Tata's generosity

Today is ninth anniversary of 26/11 Mumbai terrorists attack. The 2008 Mumbai attacks were a group of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic terrorist organisation based in Pakistan, carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wed, 26 Nov 2008 and lasted until Sat, 29 Nov 2008, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308.

  

Ratan Tata was the then chairman of Indian Hotels who owned the Taj Mahal Hotel Mumbai, which was the target of the terrorists on 26/11/08. Hotel President a 5 star property also belongs to Indian Hotels. What Ratan Tata did for the Mumbai victims is really touching. 

THE TATA GESTURE

1. All category of employees including those who had completed even 1 day as casuals were treated on duty during the time the hotel was closed.
2. Relief and assistance to all those who were injured and killed
3. The relief and assistance was extended to all those who died at the railway station, surroundings including the “Pav- Bha ji” vendor and the pan shop owners.
4. During the time the hotel was closed, the salaries were sent by money order.
5. A psychiatric cell was established in collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences to counsel those who needed such help.
6. The thoughts and anxieties going on people’s mind was constantly tracked and where needed psychological help provided.
7. Employee outreach centers were opened where all help, food, water, sanitation, first aid and counseling was provided. 1600 employees were covered by this facility.
8. Every employee was assigned to one mentor and it was that person’s responsibility to act as a “single window” clearance for any help that the person required.
9. Ratan Tata personally visited the families of all the 80 employees who in some manner – either through injury or getting killed – were affected.
10. The dependents of the employees were flown from outside Mumbai to Mumbai and taken care off in terms of ensuring mental assurance and peace. They were all accommodated in Hotel President for 3 weeks.
11. Ratan Tata himself asked the families and dependents – as to what they wanted him to do.
12. In a record time of 20 days, a new trust was created by the Tatas for the purpose of relief of employees.
13. What is unique is that even the other people, the railway employees, the police staff, the pedestrians who had nothing to do with Tatas were covered by compensation. Each one of them was provided subsistence allowance of Rs. 10K per month for all these people for 6 months.
14. A 4 year old granddaughter of a vendor got 4 bullets in her and only one was removed in the Government hospital. She was taken to Bombay hospital and several lacs were spent by the Tatas on her to fully recover her.
15. New hand carts were provided to several vendors who lost their carts.
16. Tata will take responsibility of life education of 46 children of the victims of the terror.
17. This was the most trying period in the life of the organization. Senior managers including Ratan Tata were visiting funeral to funeral over the 3 days that were most horrible.
18. The settlement for every deceased member ranged from Rs. 36 to 85 lacs [One lakh rupees tranlates to approx 2200 US $ ] in addition to the following benefits:

a. Full last salary for life for the family and dependents;
b. Complete responsibility of education of children and dependents anywhere in the world.
c. Full Medical facility for the whole family and dependents for rest of their life.
d. All loans and advances were waived off – irrespective of the amount.
e. Counselor for life for each person

EPILOGUE

1. How was such passion created among the employees? How and why did they behave the way they did?
2. The organization is clear that it is not something that someone can take credit for. It is not some training and development that created such behaviour. If someone suggests that – everyone laughs
3. It has to do with the DNA of the organization, with the way Tata culture exists and above all with the situation that prevailed that time. The organization has always been telling that customers and guests are #1 priority
4. The hotel business was started by Jamshedji Tata when he was insulted in one of the British hotels and not allowed to stay there.
5. He created several institutions which later became icons of progress, culture and modernity. IISc is one such institute. He was told by the rulers that time that he can acquire land for IISc to the extent he could fence the same. He could afford fencing only 400 acres.
6. When the HR function hesitatingly made a very rich proposal to Ratan – he said – do you think we are doing enough?
7. The whole approach was that the organization would spend several hundred crore in re-building the property – why not spend equally on the employees who gave their life?

To be generous on this scale requires lots of money, courage, a very large heart and above all empathy. At the same time our duty bound state & central governments come forward to help victims and support them is very meager even that too while announcements would be made loudly on TVs, victims kin may have to wait years and make umpteen trips to govt offices. What govt men lack is empathy.