Maratha ruler Mahatma Phule first began the celebration of the birth anniversary of Shivaji Maharaj in 1870. The first celebration of the Jayanti was held in Pune. It was taken forward by Bal Gangadhar Tilak – who brought the contributions of Shivaji Maharaj into the light and influenced people by highlighting his image. Since then, the festival has become a major cultural event and is celebrated across Maharashtra. The celebration includes cultural programs, the hoisting of the Maratha flag. It is an opportunity to pay homage to King Shivaji and to remember his legacy of valor, bravery, and leadership.
Every year Reve Pharma celebrates Shivjayanti in different ways. Here are some pictures of past Shivjayantis.
On this auspicious occasion of birth anniversary of King Shivaji, we would love to dedicate our learnings from his life to our colleagues in HR fraternity. The world is still amazed, wonders and continues to be curious to learn, research on several incidents and his achievement’s that are unbelievable and beyond imagination in the times. A lot has been studied, researched and published on King Shivaji as the great management leader and the study continues worldwide. Not only India but also worldwide there are several institutions that have included lessons from King Shivaji’s life in their education system.
On this occasion, we would like to explore HR leader in King Shivaji and his way of looking at various human resource aspects while building the empire from scratch.
On this Shijayanti, we wanted to know how much our people are aware about our Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. So, we came with the unique idea of employee engagement activity which was ‘Quiz Competition’. We all are hearing different inspirational stories of Shivaji Maharaj from our childhood. It was the time to show how much we know him. We framed a questionnaire of 30 questions along with options. We asked these questions to interested participants. The person who will answer maximum questions in 2 minutes would win. After successful completion of quiz competition we announced winners form 3 different categories of staff, workers and operators. Mr. Aanand Bhosale, Mrs. Sunita Bade, Mr. Sandip Jadhav won the competition.
Let’s see why King Shivaji was the great HR leader
Creating a great purpose for people
King Shivaji created a context and great purpose for people to come together. He communicated through all possible channels to people about his vision of building ‘Swarajya-Self Kingdom’, Peoples Self Kingdom!
People believed in him because King Shivaji practically implemented what he preached. King Shivaji had to fight with quite a lot close relatives who were against him but he did not give up. He travelled villages, met people, stayed with them, held gatherings day night and communicated his mission.
Lesson – creating a context for collaboration and giving it a great purpose brings people together, inspires and then they go beyond ordinary.
Organization Culture and Values
Culture is the root of the organization, foundational core whereas Values are beliefs and principles for day-to-day life. For Shivaji, these were most important pillars of building his team to fight against all odds.
Lesson – Creating a culture and promoting values that would inspire every single person to connect and contribute to the mission.
Discipline
King Shivaji punished unacceptable and unethical behaviors, did not tolerate anyone and anything that would lead to hindrance in the process. People who would not live as per values and commit wrongdoings were questioned and punished hard.
Lesson – People should be clearly communicated through decisions and actions about what is acceptable and what is punishable.
Recruitment / Right people on right place
One great example of his talent spotting is, selection and appointment of Bahirjee Nayik. Shivaji with his friends was playing and practicing weapons at middle of the forest. They had appointed two boys on the way to indicate them by raising some noise, if some unknown walks-in. Bahirjee walked to the forest and reached the place where Shivaji and friends were practicing, but he found all of them having nothing in hand and they were just standing and talking to each other. Bahirjee salutes Shivaji with respect and expresses his desire to work for his dream. Shivaji asks him, what are you good at? Bahirjee says, I don’t know, you judge me and assign me a role as you see
right. Shivaji calls him to visit after two days. Bahirjee pays respects and turns to walk back, he stops for a moment and says, “King, please tell your boys that peacocks don’t make such noise in this season”, and he starts walking. Shivaji puzzled for a moment but in seconds stops him and calls back. Later Shivaji appointed Bahirjee as a head of intelligence department. Those two boys appointed to raise alert made noise of peacock to give hint but it failed before talented Bahirjee.
When 500 Pathan’s (battalion of soldiers) at a time came from Bijapur to Shivaji for a job, with advice from his senior chief soldier, Shivaji included all of them in his team.
Inspiring to Perform
Everyone had a clear role, responsibilities and expectations communicated, understood and implemented too. The hierarchy of reporting, authority and escalation metrics was well defined. King Shivaji communicated to his second line through letters, personal messages through messengers and reviewed status across his boundaries.
Lesson – Leader should motivate his team to perform.
Care for People
During the no rains, Konkan area was badly affected by draughts, King Shivaji ordered to open his local godowns and distribute grains among the people. He wrote a letter to his area manager/custodian of grains stock, but the manager did not follow order and kept quiet, King Shivaji in next order wrote to him – “If people of the nation die because of starving, its shame on the king or being leader”. You better follow orders or we will arrest you. And next day, King Shivaji ordered arrest and punished the manager, while also distributed grains in people. This is great example of punishing misaligned people, getting them out of process and being responsible to commitment of the caring for people.
Lesson – A leader should be down to earth. It is his duty to take care of people.
Rewards & Recognitions
King Shivaji’s reward system was incredible, very inspiring and motivating for people to commit for higher challenges and drive results. He was great observer of human behaviors and actions, thus was able to influence people beyond obvious. King Shivaji was holding a meeting with key leadership team and the agenda was winning Kondana fort (Sinhgad, Pune). One of his other key leaders Tanaji Malusare was on leave due to his son’s wedding and arrangement. He happens to arrive at the meeting place to give wedding invitation card to King Shivaji. He paid his respect to King Shivaji and handed over invitation for his son’s wedding, and next question he asked is, King what’s the agenda of this meeting and why am I not invited or informed about it? King Shivaji replied, you have a wedding at home hence we did not bother you, but we are planning for Kondana attack. The next minute Tanaji said, “First wedding of Kondana and then my son Rayabaa”. He was very clear about his priorities and commitment to the mission. Shivaji told him not to worry and he will manage with other leaders but Tanaji insisted that he would go on the mission of Kondana. In fact King Shivaji was happy, he was well aware that no one else could win Kondana but Tanaji. The mission was so much challenging and equally critical for future. King Shivaji smiled, removed golden bangle from his hand and offered as reward/appreciation to Tanaji. He did not wait for him to comeback after winning and once all targets are met the reward would be given. It was his leadership style of rewarding in advance to inspire and drive high level of engagement for completing the committed task. Simply Amazing!!
Reve Pharma believes that King Shivaji’s life is not only a great case study but also an inspiring role model of leadership. It’s a paradigm for building a great organization, team of passionate people to achieve the unbelievable and extraordinary.
