Journalism of Courage
When a dozen Taj employees lost their lives while trying to keep their patrons safe during the terror attacks of 26/11 (Mumbai attack),little did anyone know the heroic feat of the employees would be made into a case study at one of the most prestigious business schools in the world.
Over a month after Harvard professor Rohit Deshpande first released his case study to his class of students at the Harvard Business School,the audio-visual documentary on the customer-centric and employer loyal behaviour of the Taj employees will soon be made available on the public domain,for B-schools across the globe to access.
Named Terror at the Taj Bombay: Customer-centric leadership,the case study was an off-shoot of another study that Deshpande was doing,six months after the attacks.
Talking to The Indian Express over telephone from Boston,Deshpande,originally from Mumbai and currently a professor of branding and marketing,said he was writing a case on re-branding for Taj hotels post the 26/11 attacks,when he realised that the staff at Taj had been deeply affected by the attacks.
While the hotel was going through a major re-branding exercise that I was studying,I saw that all the personnel I spoke to from the hotel kept mentioning the events of 26/11. I realised how the staff acted so selflessly even when the natural human instinct could have caused them to flee,especially if you know all the main and backdoor entry and exit points, he said.
I found it difficult to explain their behaviour and thought that the case should be analysed as a leadership case study, said Deshpande.
The case study shows how leadership was displayed by those from the lowest to the top levels in the organisation and how it helped in saving lives.
It talks about the need for customer-centricity,organisational culture,employee commitment and leadership.
Deshpande sought permission from Ratan Tata before flying back to India for the second time in early 2010,solely for the purpose of working on this case study. He interviewed a number of key personnel right from the kitchen staff and the telephone operator to top level management including Tata and vice chairman RK Krishna Kumar.
While talking to these people,what struck me the most amongst all their reactions was their inability to explain their behaviour during those three terror-filled days. Even as the case study has been prepared,it is still very difficult to explain exactly what led them to act the way they did, he said.
The 35-minute documentary was screened for Deshpandes students from an entrepreneurship course at Harvard. Their reactions can be broadly divided into two categories- reactions from Indian students and reactions from non-Indian students,who were in majority,said Deshpande.
The Indian students,having known about the incident in greater detail had a more emotional reaction while the non-Indian students,though emotionally aloof,were greatly impressed by the courage and employer-loyalty shown by the employees, said Deshpande.
The case study will soon be available for other business schools too.
