TALKING TO TATA

A WAITER CAN TALK TO TATA

I recall that evening more than two decades ago when I was dining at the Taj Hotel Mumbai—the scene of a tragic event many years later. As I placed my order I noticed J.R.D.Tata at a nearby table. I went up to him to shake the hands of the iconic industrialist .I saw a waiter approaching JRD to take his request. Tata talked to him in the most polite of voices I have ever heard and asked him ‘Is Ratan taking care of you?’The reference was to Ratan Tata. The waiter smiled broadly and said ‘Of course sir’.

A WAITER CAN TALK TO TATA

This small incident came flooding back to me when I read this morning about a Harvard Business School case study on a topic that seems to have eluded our desi management gurus .The HBS study was on a very rare topic—What is it about the Taj management style that motivated ordinary employees of that hotel to sacrifice their lives to save the lives of guests on that fateful 26 November when Kasab and his gang of marauders attacked the heart of India?’

The details will be available in due course but I sense a link between what JRD asked the waiter more than 20 years ago and the action of the employees on 26 /11 that went far beyond the call of duty.

It is fashionable in some management circles in India to talk derisively of the mai- baap management style—the so called paternalistic style that is popular in India. Those brought up entirely on a diet of western management styles have always felt that this paternalistic style is a fallout of the ‘ family’ concept that permeates every walk of life in India . No doubt this style is in disrepute these days when dynasties exist in politics ,business, film industry etc .But at the Taj it is precisely this attitude where the owners and managers treat employees as family members that workers rise to enormous heights far beyond what can be expected of them.

The other Indian or Asian concept if you like that is now being studied is that of the education system with its attendant emphasis on rote learning. US President Obama has been casting envious glances at students from India and China. He has been telling his countrymen to emulate the Indian emphasis on rigorous education from Kindergarten onwards , the brief vacation period, the humungous homework, the parental interest, the mind boggling competition to get admitted to the best institutions etc—all these are often considered ills of our system. I plead guilty too. But wait a minute .May I submit that our rigorous education system has produced ‘imbibers’ of knowledge but the question is why have we not produced ‘creators’ of knowledge? It is worth noting that Indians who have achieved any eminence in academics or for that matter some other fields have done so in the US and other advanced countries and have left India after frustrating encounters with bureaucracy. Obviously we need to exchange views and practices with the west.

I came across an advertisement in a local paper for a ‘Science Workshop’ for kids. Overjoyed at this attempt at inculcating a fascination for science among kids I spoke to the administrator .I asked what the contents were. She replied that they would be demonstrating some interesting science concepts by simple experiments. These concepts included gravity, centripetal force etc. I asked her if the workshop would talk about how to think like a scientist. She was dumbstruck and acknowledged that this had never crossed her mind .I think there is a lesson in this .Our education system lays stress on knowledge acquisition but places little emphasis on how to think. Unfortunately I do not know how to teach kids or else I would have offered to conduct a class on this subject—also called critical thinking

.K.R.RAVI

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