Strategic Thinking for a Thriving Future

“‘A‘ohe pu‘u ki‘eki‘e ke ho‘ā‘o e pi‘i; No cliff is so tall that it cannot be scaled.”
(No problem is too great when we work strategically to solve it)

In our work at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), we navigate a broad and ambitious horizon – 26 strategic outcomes in our Mana i Mauli Ola Strategic Plan designed to uplift our lāhui.

Some may view this as daunting; goals that seem impossible to achieve. But from a Hawaiian worldview, this perspective is not only limiting, it is foreign. Are we a people who fear challenges affecting the wellbeing of our communities? We descend from ali‘i who envisioned and built thriving societies, from navigators who read the stars to traverse the Pacific, and from kūpuna whose ʻike continues to guide us in balancing complexity with clarity.

Fear of failure is not rooted in our ancestral ways of thinking. It is a conditioned response, shaped by systems that encourage scarcity and fragmentation.

These limitations are deeply tied to the characteristics of white supremacy culture and keep us from embracing the expansive, adaptive, and relational ways of thinking that are natural to us as Kānaka.

Instead of seeing complexity as an obstacle, we can look to our cultural foundations to find tools to navigate it. David Kahalemaile, in his 1871 speech on ea for Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea, articulated the responsibility of maintaining our sovereignty through strategic vision and active practice of our ancestral knowledge. Joseph Nāwahī, a loyal patriot of the Hawaiian Kingdom, dedicated his life to preserving our nation through governance, resistance, and the power of Hawaiian language newspapers, ensuring that knowledge was shared widely among our people.

Our kūpuna never shied away from what seemed insurmountable; they studied the path ahead, adapted as necessary, and held steadfast to their values.

Strategic thinking requires a mindset shift. The outcomes we pursue are interconnected pathways toward our collective ea (sovereignty) to shape our future and wellbeing. We do not have to accomplish everything at once; we can move with intention, guided by our values and the knowledge that success is built over time, through relationships and iterative progress.

Our ancestors understood the importance of multiple layers of meaning in a single concept. In the same way, we can hold multiple priorities without losing clarity. The key is alignment. When we anchor our work in ʻike kūpuna, we are not overwhelmed by the details because we see the larger framework at play. We do not prioritize based on external pressures, but on our ancestral understanding of pilina (relationships), lōkahi (harmony), and kuleana.

By embracing our Indigenous strategic mindset, we shift from fear-based thinking to an abundance-based approach. We do not ask, “Is this too much?” We ask, “What’s possible now that wasn’t possible before?”

We recognize that each step, no matter how small, is part of a broader movement toward lāhui wellbeing. Like our voyaging ancestors, we chart our course not by focusing on the waves immediately before us, but by reading the stars, aligning our work with our collective vision, and knowing that we have everything we need to reach our destination.