Umiform

Human Resources to Heroes, an Extraordinary Journey 26/11 MUMBAI ATTACK Leadership from below explains the valour of Taj employees who sacrificed their lives to ensure the safety of guests, finds study by Harvard duo SAUMYA BHATTACHARYA NEW DELHI

   In the weeks that followed 26/11 -- the day on which rampaging terrorists killed some 150 people at 10 locations in South Mumbai, including 11 employees of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel – Ratan Tata made visits to some of the bereaved families. The chief of the Tata group, which owns the Taj via group company Indian Hotels, 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.

The above anecdote is narrated by Rohit Deshpande, professor at Harvard Business School (HBS), who was interviewing Tata for a five-part video case study on crisis management at the Taj during 26/11. Deshpande started to teach the course at Harvard from October 2010. His students, especially non-Indians, 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 student reaction prodded Deshpande, along with Anjali Raina, executive director at HBS India Research Centre in Mumbai to delve deeper into the HR practices of the organisation. The uncommon valour of those who worked at the Taj convinced the duo to research the human resource (HR) practices of the organisation. After all, here 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. “We wondered whether the HR best practices made them do this and decided to dig deeper into the HR processes,” said Deshpande, while Raina added that: “It was intriguing to unpack the Taj approach to HR and speculate on the linkages between the hotel’s HR policies and practices...