“If it (the hotel) goes down, I will be the last man out.” These words by Karambir Singh Kang, Taj Mumbai’s general manager, when the hotel was under 26/11 terror attack, have become an enduring example of selfless service and sacrifice.
Harvard business professor Rohit Deshpande uses the Taj Hotel terror as a case study to find what drives employees to put others and their organisation before themselves. All the employees, including Kang, knew every exit in the hotel and could have fled leaving the guests to face the terrorists’ bullets. But not a single employee, from the hotel boy to the general manager, left their post. They were the last men and women standing.
How does an organisation achieve this model of ethical and selfless behaviour? Mukund Rajan, Brand Custodian & Member – Group Executive Council, Tata Sons, answered this very question through the 150-year-old journey of the Tata Group at TechSparks2016.
Call beyond duty
“At Tata, a sense of who we are and why we exist is what defines our organisation culture and this, in turn, has contributed to the equity of the Tata brand,” he said. The Tata brand is among the top 60 most valued brands in the world. The pioneering spirit is seen not only in innovations but also setting up processes in human resources and looking at the good of the community as a whole by inculcating a sense of higher purpose.
Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Find purpose and the means will follow,’ Mukund Rajan said the higher purpose of the organisation is to improve the quality of life of the community it serves.
According to him, “A company’s long-term vision is not just about the next quarter but as much about the next quarter century. In organisations, success is measured in quarters — from Q1 to Q4. But there’s a need to see the bigger picture. By 2025, Tata will touch the lives of one-quarter of the globe, that’s over two billion people. That’s what the next quarter should be to us,” he said.