Rabbi Commentary

Learning Mitzvot (Commandments) from Hindu Herois

A remarkable study in the Harvard Business Review gives us fascinating theological insights from some very unusual sources. It began with the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India (formerly Bombay) in November of 2008. A dozen locations were hit. One of them was the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. As its name suggests, this five star hotel is one of the most luxurious places to stay in India or anywhere else. It is the flagship of the Taj international chain of luxury hotels.

The terrorists held the Taj Hotel under siege for 3 days, shooting and setting fires. They killed 31 people in the hotel.

After the siege ended, the hotel executives realized that something very extraordinary had happened. NONE of the hotel employees had fled the hotel. They all stayed to keep the guests as safe as possible during the shootings and the fires.

There were many examples of heroism among the staff during those 3 days of siege. The hotel staff knew all the exits and could have saved themselves, but they didn’t. Twelve of the 31 who died were staff members. The general manager of the Taj kept working to save guests downstairs, even after his wife and his two children died in the fire on the sixth floor.

In 2009 Rojit Deshpande, who holds an endowed full professorship in marketing at Harvard Business School, was in India interviewing senior management of the Taj hotel about an entirely different topic. He found them talking instead about their staff’s response to the terrorist attack. The executives could not understand why the staff responded with so much loyalty and kindness.

Professor Deshpande returned to Mumbai in 2010 to make a formal academic study of the causes of the staff’s behavior. He reviewed the company’s human resources policies, and he interviewed many hotel staff members. His conclusion was that the Taj Hotel chain deliberately recruits employees who exhibit empathy. They hire people from smaller towns who are recommended by others for having good character.

Part of this is simply good business practice. The Taj Hotel chain is famous for its excellent customer service, and kindness to customers is a key element.

Part of this is because the owner of the owner of the Taj Hotel chain is a devout Hindu family named Tata. This very wealthy Hindu family has a strong interest in social justice. Two thirds of the profits of their company, the Tata Group, go into a charitable trust which supports important worthy causes. This is tens of billions of dollars for charity each year. A very big deal.

There are no Jews or Christians in this story of extreme purposeful kindness. It isn’t from our concept of religion. The incredible kindness of the hotel employees originates in a gigantic multinational corporation. The Tata Group owns 114 companies, including Jaguar and Land Rover and Tetley Tea. If it were American and publicly owned, its huge size would put it in the Dow 30.

Dr. Deshpande entitled his case study, “Terror at the Taj Bombay: Customer-Centric Leadership”. He hopes that his work will be used in business schools throughout the world to show that the heroic actions of the Taj’s employees are not an isolated incident.

Kol tuv (all good things),

Rabbi Aileen Hollander