Story-Hire for Values & Attitude
On November 26, 2008, at Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai, everything was going as usual. Around 9:30 PM, they heard first gunshots from terrorists who were storming the Taj.
The staff quickly realized something was wrong. 24-year Banquet manager Mallika had the doors locked of the 2nd-floor banquet hall 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 group stayed there all night, listening to the terrorists rampaging through the hotel, hurling grenades, firing automatic weapons, and tearing the place apart. The Taj staff kept calm, according to the guests, and constantly went around offering water and asking people if they needed anything else. Early the next morning, the staff evacuated the guests first, and no casualties resulted.
Elsewhere in the hotel, the upscale Japanese restaurant Wasabi by Morimoto was busy at 9:30 PM. A warning call from a hotel operator alerted the staff that terrorists had entered the building and were heading toward the restaurant. Forty-eight-year-old Thomas Varghese, the senior waiter at Wasabi, immediately instructed his 50-odd guests to crouch under tables, and he directed employees to form a human cordon around them. Four hours later, he decided to evacuate the customers first and then the hotel staff. The 30-year 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.
Just like these many stories unfolded in those two days in Taj. Every story was beyond the logic of human behavior and heroes of the story were ordinary employees of Taj.
During the onslaught on the Taj Mumbai, 31 people died and 28 were hurt, but the hotel received only praise the day after. Its guests were overwhelmed by employees’ dedication to duty, their desire to protect guests without regard to personal safety, and their quick thinking. Restaurant and banquet staff rushed people to safe locations such as kitchens and basements. Telephone operators stayed at their posts, alerting guests to lock doors and not step out. Kitchen staff formed human shields to protect guests during evacuation attempts. As many as 11 Taj Mumbai employees—a third of the hotel’s casualties—laid down their lives while helping between 1,200 and 1,500 guests escape.
Even so, the Taj Mumbai’s employees gave customer service a whole new meaning during the terrorist strike. What created that extreme customer-centric culture of an employee after employee staying back to rescue guests when they could have saved themselves?
Harvard Business Review (HBR) studies show that the Taj’s unusual hiring practices based on Values and then training for skills, extreme Customer Centricity by letting employees represent their guests as ambassadors and many more such practices which built a winning culture in the organization is responsible for extraordinary behaviors of ordinary Heroes of Taj.
26/11 & Taj is a case study for the whole world today to learn from.
Learning from the story
1. Hire for values & attitude and train for skills.
2. Being a customer-centric organization is key to success.
3. Building a winning culture in the organization is key to retain a loyal workforce.
Questions to ask ourselves
1. How can we hire on values and attitude?
2. How can we build a customer-centric organization and create a winning culture in our organization?
If you really want to learn how to Build a Customer-Centric Organisation, Create a winning culture in your organization and build a dream team; consider this as my personal invitation to our half day seminar
Apart from above, here’s what I commit, you will learn in this Seminar
1. How to at least DOUBLE your income.
2. How to build a valuable business which can be sold in part or full if needed.
3. & How to PUT your Business on AUTOPILOT, which WORKS and GROWS without you.
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