As the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to wreak havoc on Hawai‘i’s economy, many organizations and business owners are left wondering what, when and if the Hawai‘i economy can recover to its pre-pandemic state. The longing for the past is based on the Hawai‘i’s low unemployment for five years and the historically highest visitor rate of 10 million visitors a year. However, infectious disease experts predict that pre-pandemic conditions will not return for many years. Additionally, other stressors such as natural disasters and trade and land wars may lead to supply chain and market disruptions, so even if the current pandemic ends, continuing business as usual may not be possible or desirable.
Moving ahead
Urgent conditions mean that organizations cannot afford to wait until an overall economic plan is developed by the government. All of us can help in our own way to help solve the problems. Each of us can reflect on our own circumstances in our own businesses, organizations or industries, and create resiliency in our own lives. It will require accepting hard truths and questioning long held assumptions, but if it is done right and often it would help better prepare you to process current and future shocks.
Many of our current leaders believe that resiliency is needed for the Hawai‘i economy to survive and thrive, but it is unclear what exactly that would mean. A starting point is a definition of resiliency by the World Bank as “the ability of an economy as a whole to cope, recover from and reconstruct after a shock” or as “the economic resilience of individual households or firms, and their ability to cope with or recover from a shock and adapt to changing economic circumstances in the wider economy.” ( 1 ) Resiliency has been said to be an innate human skill that ensures survival. However, our resiliency skills need to be developed to a higher level to deal with uncommon, exceptional or unusual conditions, such as pandemic conditions.
Boosting resiliency
As a result of dealing with complex situations, we have developed a simple process to help our clients boost their resiliency and deal with tough conditions. Enhanced economic resiliency will allow you to identify the following:
- Potential economic growth opportunities and the means to nurture them within the economy.
- Solutions that address both macroeconomic and microeconomic conditions of success
- Preparation for government, businesses, organizations, families and individuals so they are prepared to take advantage of the identified opportunities.
Here are the recommendations we make to clients as they start out on the road to greater resiliency:
- Face reality and grieve – Acknowledge what is really happening, become acutely aware and take ownership of your situation. Make sure you sufficiently grieve so that you are prepared to take on the task of defining a new path, but do not dwell in negativity.
- Open your heart and mind and identify gaps in understanding – Open yourself up to new suggestions and realizations, even those that seem a bit far-fetched. Learn from past mistakes. Question your past assumptions and considerations since they may prevent you from focusing on the important tasks of finding purpose and setting realistic goals.
- Allow creativity and ingenuity into your solutions – Find gaps, opportunities and improvements that help your situation and create the necessary changes within what is possible.
- Build upon grit and perseverance into vision – Create a plan of action that you commit to. The plan should include incremental steps that are achievable. The steps help keep the plan on course.
- Consistent validation and evaluation – Develop a habit of consistently working towards evaluating your solutions and outcomes to help you make informed decisions. Make sure you validate your future assumptions as well as you look to improve on your measures.
- Iterate – Evolution and change are the only constants in life and in business. Constantly look to improve every aspect of your business by going through the process again, sometimes even more frequently.
As you can see above, the process we have defined is not prescriptive. It does not guarantee or lead to a specific solution that is applicable to everyone. Instead, the process helps individuals, businesses, or organizations examine their own condition, apply their own learning, generate their own ideas and plan and develop them over time. We provide assistance in the process by providing services such as data-driven business analyses and change management strategies designed to lead clients through meaningful discourse that works toward real solutions.
Our resiliency will help the wider community
Hawai‘i is facing significant issues, complicated by tensions and dichotomies. On one hand, the economic recovery discussions are focused on reinvigorating our hospitality industry to bring jobs back. On the other, local life struggles because few jobs in this industry pay a living wage.
Hawai‘i desperately needs solutions that help reconcile the differences between these conflicting conditions and objectives, to help the State be much more resilient and effective to adjust for future impacts to our economy, health, community, and environment. The State needs solutions that provide success on both the macroeconomic and microeconomic levels. As there are no obvious solutions, problem solving by our leaders will take a great deal of time. If we can identify potential economic growth opportunities within our own lives and businesses and develop them, like the plants that break through the lava fields, we can start bringing new life to Hawai‘i. Step up. Stand tall for Hawai‘i.
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About the Authors
Rodney Lee is an Executive Vice-President and lead consultant at Spire Hawai‘i LLP and has over 30 years of consulting experience in various industries and capacities.
Lani Nakazawa is a Director at Spire Hawai‘i and has over 50 years of experience in both public and private industry.
Spire Hawai‘i LLP is a consulting and CPA firm which provides assurance, accounting, legal support and consulting services to help its clients through complex, multidisciplinary challenges.
