Taj staff heroism defies Harvard study

Not even senior managers could explain why employees stayed put to save guests

The heroic response by employees of Mumbai's Taj Hotel during the 26/11 terror attacks is now a case study at Harvard Business School (HBS). It focusses on the staff's selfless service to customers, and how they went beyond their call of duty to save lives.

The multimedia case study, ‘Terror at the Taj Bombay: Customer-Centric Leadership', by HBS Professor Rohit Deshpande documents “the bravery and resourcefulness shown by rank-and-file employees” during the attack.

The study is on “why the Taj employees stayed at their posts, jeopardising their safety in order to save hotel guests” and how that level of loyalty and dedication can be replicated elsewhere.

A dozen employees died trying to save the lives of the guests during the attacks.

“Not even the senior managers could explain the behaviour of these employees,” Professor Deshpande is quoted as saying in HBS Working Knowledge, a forum on the faculty's research and ideas. Even though the employees “knew all the back exits” and could have easily fled the building, some stayed back to help the guests, he said.

“The natural human instinct would be to flee. These are people who instinctively did the right thing. And in the process, some of them, unfortunately, gave their lives to save [the] guests.”

A documentary-style account of the events, the case includes video interviews with hotel staff and footage of the attack. It shows how leadership displayed by people from the bottom rank to the top levels in the organisational hierarchy helped in saving lives.

It also focusses on the hotel's history, its approach to recruiting and training employees, the Indian philosophy of “guest is God,” and how the hotel would recover after the attacks.

Another key concept of the study is that in India and the rest of the developing world, “there is a much more paternalistic equation between employer and employee that creates a kinship.”