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On the 26th of November 2008,

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as you just heard,

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a group of 10 terrorists
attacked the city of Mumbai -

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what used to be called Bombay -

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in India.

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They broke up into teams to attack
about a dozen different locations.

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One of those locations
was the iconic, beautiful,

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103-year-old Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

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in South Bombay.

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For three nights, two days,

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there was absolute havoc in that hotel.

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Guests were terrorized;
people wounded, shot, and killed.

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This group of terrorists
with automatic weapons,

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plastic explosives,
and grenades in backpacks

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roamed freely through this old hotel.

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Many of us, many of you,

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witnessed or saw some of that coverage
on television at home.

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Let's take a closer look.

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(Video) (Music)

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Narrator: The evening
of November 26, 2008,

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was a typical busy Wednesday for the Taj.

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More than 500 guests
were registered at the hotel.

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Another 500 to 600 were attending
functions in banquet halls

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or sitting down to dinner
in the hotel's 10 restaurants.

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(Explosion)

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(Explosion)

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Shortly after 9:00 PM, an explosion rocked
the Leopold Cafe just around the corner,

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less than 200 meters from the Taj.

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(Siren)

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(Gunshots)

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Two young men pulled out automatic weapons

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and began firing.

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(Gunshots)

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Crowds at the Gateway of India

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and along the street
in front of the Taj panicked,

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many rushing the doors of the hotel.

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In the ensuing chaos,

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two heavily armed terrorists
circumvented the metal detectors

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and entered the lobby.

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(Ominous music)

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They were soon joined
by the two attackers from the Leopold,

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who broke through a back door.

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Hemant Oberoi: 9:35 or 9:40
was the first call I got

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from one of my chefs.

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And he thinks some shooting
is taking place:

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"A person has been shot dead
outside my restaurant."

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Then we heard another gunshot,
and I told him on the phone only -

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I said, "Just close all the kitchens,
all the restaurant doors."

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Man 1: They were banging the doors.

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They were alerting everyone:
"Come out; otherwise we'll shoot you."

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There were a few guests who,
you know, they were scared,

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and they came out
by putting their hands up.

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And they started hitting them;
they started harassing them.

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It was horrible.

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(Fire crackles)

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(Shouting)

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Man 2: The situation,
the entire scenario, was very scary.

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We couldn't judge at that time,

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OK, what is exactly
happening in the hotel.

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Man 3: It was a literally war situation.

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You could hear grenades lobbing around
and the gunshots also.

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Karambir Singh Kang:
We did not know the scale of the attack.

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We did not know
what exactly was going on,

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where they were at that moment.

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And there was total chaos.

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My colleagues were trapped with guests
in various places, asking me,

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"What should we do next?"

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(Shouting)

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(Music ends)

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(On stage) Rohit Deshpandé: So picture
what's happening inside that hotel.

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There are 500 guests
who are registered at that hotel

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this night of 26th November.

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There are an additional 600 or so guests

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who are in various restaurants,
attending various banquets and functions.

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There are about 600 or so
staff members on duty that night -

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young people, many of them very young:

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20, 30-year-olds.

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Some of them had -

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these staff members had only been working
for a few years at this hotel.

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Many of them fathers and mothers,

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the sole breadwinners in their families,
with children at home waiting for them.

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One of the things -

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we don't know a lot about the detail
about what happened there,

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but one of the things we do know

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is that all 600 of these employees
knew all the back routes.

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They knew the exits,
they knew the entrances,

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they knew the hallways,
the kitchen galleys.

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In other words, they knew how to get out
and how to get out fast.

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All the research we have
in psychology would tell us

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that the natural human instinct
at a time of terror like this

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is to flee.

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So think about it ... what you would do.

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So when I teach this case study
at Harvard, I ask my students -

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I say, "How many of these employees
do you think fled,

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and how many of them do you think stayed?"

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And they would hazard guesses,

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and the maximum they say that would stay
would be maybe a quarter -

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150 or so.

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You know, but that's the maximum.

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Everybody who can run away will run away.

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Well, the truth of the matter
is that nobody ran away.

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They all stayed.

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In fact, some of them not only stayed,

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they helped guests out
and came back in to help more guests.

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It's an amazing story.

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These are some of their stories.

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(Video) (Music)

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[Footage courtesy NDTV]

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Narrator: The staff of the Taj
stayed on duty throughout the siege,

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calming frightened guests
and assisting in their rescue.

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Many even came back inside
after leading guests out of the building.

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Members of the hotel's team
of telephone operators,

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originally evacuated,

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voluntarily returned to their stations
and stayed on all night.

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Man 4: They became the hub
of communication at that point.

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They were the ones
calling every single guest room,

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talking to the guests,

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and telling them to stay in,
don't step out, lock your door.

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Narrator: As the terrorists
roamed the halls,

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telephone operators instructed
trapped guests to pull their key cards

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to turn off the illuminated "Occupied"
button in the hallway outside their doors.

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Man 5: The attack started
at 9:30 in the evening.

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Till four o'clock,
they were answering guest calls.

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I think that speaks a lot
for a hotel under attack.

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Narrator: Among the guests
at the Taj that night

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were members of the global board
of directors and senior management team

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of Unilever,

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who had gathered along with their spouses
to honor incoming and outgoing CEOs.

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Leena Nair: So we had this really
elaborate seven-course meal,

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and that was sort of
the setting, the mood.

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There was warmth, there was laughter,

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there was a perfect setting
for a nostalgic farewell,

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and a perfect setting for a nice welcome.

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And I heard what seemed to me,
which is an untrained ear,

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like firecrackers in the hotel.

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Mallika Jagad: We started getting
these text messages and phone calls.

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There were some gunmen on the loose.

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The only logical thing to do
was to close the doors and just stay put.

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LN: Mallika came to us and said,

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"We think there's a problem;
we're not sure what exactly it is.

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But I'd request all of you
to be on the ground right now."

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The level of calm and composure
that the staff displayed was amazing,

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was absolutely amazing,

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because they had the presence
of mind to advise us, saying,

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"Couples, please separate.

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Don't stay at the same place;
just be in different corners of the room."

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MJ: 65 lives were at stake,
so can't take a chance.

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So obviously, we were in touch
with security all the time and -

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had a lot of alcohol in the room.

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So that helped a little.

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LN: This went on the whole night.

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We were on the floor
with our hearts in our mouths,

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with debris falling all around us,

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the noises of, you know,
firecrackers all around.

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And all through,
the staff kept their composure,

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kept coming to ask,

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"Do you want some water?
Do you want something?"

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MJ: Well, I was scared.

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But there was something
more important to be done.

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LN: This went on
till 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning,

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when the room filled with smoke.

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So we had no choice
but to find a way to escape.

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MJ: The entire corridor
outside the hall was on fire,

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so there was no way we could get out.

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The fire guys were outside,

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and they were dousing the fire
on the sixth floor,

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and we happened to see
Mr. Kang downstairs as well.

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So he sort of ushered the fire guys to us.

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LN: We sort of climbed onto the ledge

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and did some stuff which in today's
normality I wouldn't be able to do.

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But we came onto the ledge,
climbed down to the ladders,

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which by then the fire brigade
people had come.

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The staff insisted
that we would go first -

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guests would go first.

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And they kept like that
till all of us had come down,

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and then they all came down.

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MJ: Well, in a way, because I was there,
I was looking after the function,

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I was responsible.

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I could have been
the youngest in the room -

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and I know at one point in time
I was the youngest in the room, but ...

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I was still doing my job.

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Abhijit Mukherji: The easiest thing
for our staff to do at that point in time

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was to drop whatever they were doing
and run out of the hotel.

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Not one did that.

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Not one.

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Karambir Singh Kang:
I come from an army background -

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not myself but my father -

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he retired as a general in the army.

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And he often used to say

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when I was even appointed here
as the general manager -

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used to often tell me that

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"You are now like
the captain of the ship."

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And I think that's the way you think -

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that you're the captain of the ship
and you have to be the last one to leave.

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And if it sinks, you sink with it.

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(Singing)

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[Several hours into the siege,

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General Manager Kang's wife
and two young sons

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would perish in a fire
that swept through their living quarters

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on the hotel's sixth floor.]

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[Another tragedy would occur
in the early morning hours of November 27

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when a team of chefs and kitchen staff
began to evacuate guests.]

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(Singing ends)

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Ajoy K Mira: At some point,

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our kitchen brigade decided
that it looked like a lull in the thing

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and they could be taken out
from the back of the kitchen

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through the fire exit to the back road.

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And our chefs had formed a human chain

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to escort people in the darkness
down those stairs.

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And as hundreds of them
were being evacuated,

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somehow two of those terrorists
got to know that this was happening.

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And the terrorists arrived there

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and saw these chefs lined up,
herding people away,

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and there was mayhem.

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They cut loose, and that's where we lost -

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we lost our biggest numbers there.

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We had five or six
of our chefs gunned down.

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But they took the bullets.

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R K Krishna Kumar:
So they risked their lives

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in just making sure
that the guests were safe.

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LN: I don't think we would have
made it out of the hotel

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without the support, the assurance,

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the constant, you know,
service orientation

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that the staff provided, without doubt,

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which is why we will continue
to be so grateful to them.

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Ratan Tata: I can't explain it.

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There were no manuals,
there were no instructions

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for what should be done
in the circumstances.

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So what seems to have happened

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is individuals, from the waiters
to the managers of the restaurants,

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all had this goal of
"Let's get the guests to safety."

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(On stage) Rohit Deshpandé: To reiterate:

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500 registered guests.

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600 guests in restaurants and banquets,

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like that Unilever board event
that you just heard about.

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600 employees.

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It's about 1,700 people that night.

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Of those 1,700, over 1,600 escaped safely.

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Only 34 people died.

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Of those 34, fully half
were staff members of the hotel.

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So when we were working
on this case study,

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I asked senior management
how this happened, why this happened,

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what explains the behavior of their staff.

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And these are young people.

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00:13:15,801 --> 00:13:19,079
Mallika Jagad, the banquet manager
for the Unilever event,

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whom you saw speaking -

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24 years old.

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What explains it?

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And you heard:

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They can't explain it, senior management.

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Mr. Ratan Tata, head of the Tata
group of companies -

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they own the Taj Hotels -

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he couldn't explain it.

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So I teach this at Harvard.

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I bring this case study back,

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and I teach this
at the Harvard Business School

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as a case study of leadership from below.

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We teach usually about leadership

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as being something
from the top that filters down.

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This is leadership from below -
it's just amazing.

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And I ask my students,
"How do you explain it?"

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And they have plausible explanations
for the behavior of the employees.

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Some of them say,

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"Well, it must be the culture,
the national culture, of India.

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It must be something in the value system
there that explains it."

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And in fact, there is.

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It turns out that
there is a value or a belief

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that says a guest
is to be treated like God.

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When a guest enters your home,
treat her or him like God.

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"Atithi devo bhava" in Sanskrit.

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Other students say,

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"No, no, no, it's not national culture;
it's corporate culture."

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If the Taj Hotels is owned
by this family, the Tata group,

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they have a long history in India

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of very benevolent
human resource policies -

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a family of integrity
in their business dealings.

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It's the corporate culture.

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And others say, "No, it's not that.
This happened at a hotel.

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It's the industry culture;
it's hospitality."

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Employees are trained to serve customers,
so that's what's going on.

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All of these are very plausible.

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So along with another colleague,

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I decided to go back
into the Taj Hotel company records

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to try to understand
their human resource policy.

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Who were these people?
Who were these staff?

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Where did they find them?
How do they recruit them?

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How do they motivate and train them?

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And I learned lots of really,
really intriguing things.

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Let me share, in the interest of time,
just three of them with you.

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First, about recruiting.

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You know, they recruit their first line,
their frontline employees,

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from high schools
not from the major cities -

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not from Bombay or Delhi
or Calcutta or Madras.

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They recruit them from small towns:

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Haldia, Chandigarh,
Nashik, Tiruchirappalli -

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small towns.

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And they recruit students,
graduating students,

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for attitude, not grades.

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They ask their headmasters
or their teachers,

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"Who are the students that you teach

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who have the most respect
for older people, for their parents,

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for the teachers?"

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They're not looking for the students
who do the best in grades

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but, rather, for attitude.

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Then, training -

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this is fascinating.

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You know, you've heard
of brand ambassadors.

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Lots of companies, many organizations
perhaps that you represent,

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train their frontline staff

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to be ambassadors
for the brand, for the company.

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You know what they do at the Taj Hotels?

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They train their frontline employees

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to be ambassadors
for the customer, for the guest.

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It's very different;
it's counterintuitive.

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They call them "guest ambassadors."

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00:16:41,478 --> 00:16:43,107
They believe frontline employees

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should be the voice of the client,
of the customer, of the guest,

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to the company.

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And third and perhaps most importantly,

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their motivation system -

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their reward system, incentives -

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is not just monetary.

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They pay about average,
a little above average,

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in that hotel sector in India.

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But they reward people with recognition,
personal recognition.

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So when an employee does something
that delights customers

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and the guest writes a note,

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within 48 hours
that employee is recognized.

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48 hours!

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00:17:20,335 --> 00:17:23,837
They don't have to wait
for a Diwali or a Christmas bonus;

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it happens within 48 hours.

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Amazing.

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00:17:26,590 --> 00:17:29,627
In fact, they won
the international Hermes Award

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for an innovation in human resource
management for this STARS program.

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So let me close by asking you

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to think a little bit about the lessons
that you take away from this -

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from this company far away
on the other side of the world -

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the things that we can learn
here in America, that we can bring home,

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00:17:50,119 --> 00:17:54,416
that we can scale to American businesses,
American organizations.

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Things like the way customers are treated:

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building a customer-centric, guest-centric
corporate culture, organizational culture.

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00:18:04,987 --> 00:18:10,164
Rethinking the relationship, the contract,
between employer and employee.

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And finally, let me close by saying
this is an amazing, inspirational story -

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that something that was supposed
to be a symbol of terrorism

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00:18:20,037 --> 00:18:24,624
is today a beacon of hope.

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Thank you.