 Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, and it's about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is the highly respected leader and president of Punahou School. He is President Mike Latham, and today we are going beyond education. Hey, President Mike, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Pleasure to be with you, Rusty. Thanks so much. President Mike, you've done such an amazing job being the leader of Punahou School through the pandemic, and so many people are impressed with your leadership. And I know that you graduated Punahou in 1986, but can you tell me about what you liked most about attending Punahou? Oh, you know, I still feel a tremendous debt of gratitude to Punahou. Of all the institutions I've been a part of, this is the one that I think had the biggest impact on me as a person. I certainly was very challenged there, you know, academically, athletically, which I really enjoyed. But looking back, I think it was really Punahou's faculty, Punahou's teachers who took an interest in me, supported me, you know, that we know this today, that having this trusted adult outside of your immediate family who understands you, who has confidence in you, who you really have a sense is believing that you can achieve makes a huge difference. And that was certainly the case for me. So I'm very grateful to my Punahou teachers. I look at the student that I was when I entered the school in seventh grade, and the kid that I graduated as six years later, and it just made a world of difference. So I really very grateful to them. Punahou, as I know, they have so many great teachers and coaches. And why do you feel Punahou is such a special place? You know, it's a great question. I think it's kind of remarkable that there's this community of people from all around the world who have come to find a home here. And they come from many different walks of life, many different races, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds. And they've ultimately decided that this is a place they're going to contribute to and really come to value. And over the past 180 years, you know, that has just continued to develop and to grow. It's remarkable that this is a school that ultimately educated to presidents, Barack Obama and Sun Yat Sen. And that's that's really kind of amazing. But I think a lot of it does come down to the people and those interpersonal relationships. And really, I think a deep commitment to the whole student, we've always been about academic excellence and our students go off to attend the best colleges and universities in the world, which we're really proud of. But at the end of the day, we really are interested in the development of the whole student. We want to graduate students with terrific academic skills, but we also want them to have self confidence. We want them to know how to navigate uncertain social situations. We want them to learn how to manage stress and anxiety, how to continue growing as people. One of our trustees used the phrase kindergarten through life. And I really like that. I think that reflects a lot of what we do well. Oh, I completely agree with you, President Mike. And I know that you're having a full renovation of the Cook Library, how you how excited are you about that? We're very excited about that. It's it's the first major capital project in the high school side of the campus in over 20 years. And libraries have changed a lot. You know, I think libraries used to be a place where only a couple of things happened. Students learned research skills from librarians, or they studied quietly and independently. And those two things still happen, of course. But libraries have also become the places where students are doing a lot more collaborative work in teams. They're much more technology rich. They've become kind of the intellectual center of a campus, a space where students are ultimately doing a lot of more project based learning, where faculty are having informal conversations with students outside the classroom, where students are sharing the knowledge that they've produced with each other and publicly. So we're really excited to have the chance to develop a facility that's going to support that. So that's a great thing to have on the horizon. I'm excited for all of Punahoe as well. And President Mike, what what are some qualities you expect your Punahoe graduates to possess? You know, that's a really great question. I think, you know, there certainly are what we would describe as classic liberal arts abilities. You know, your your ability to write in a persuasive and eloquent way, your ability to make a compelling oral argument, your ability to think critically, quantitative reasoning, those are all classic liberal arts abilities. They're things which have been important to us for many years. Alongside them, I would add another set of capacities, which I think are really a reflection of the fact that the world of higher education, the world of work is radically changed because of global interconnections because of technology. And so I would talk about, you know, your ability to collaborate and work together in teams, your ability to draw knowledge from multiple sources and apply it to an authentic concrete problem, your ability to navigate different cultural environments, your capacity to have meaningful and productive disagreements with other people in an empathetic way. You know, I think those are skills which, you know, sometimes mistakenly, I think we sometimes refer to them as soft skills. I actually don't think they're that soft. I actually think those are kind of the key leadership skills, the kind of skills which anybody really needs to thrive. And they fall sometimes into that realm of emotional intelligence. But I think they're really crucial and I think they can be taught. So that's a big part of what we're trying to do. Well, I love hearing your insights, President Mike, and I want to know what are some of your challenges that you deal with leading one of the country's most, I mean, largest independent schools? I mean, you did such an incredible job through COVID, but can you tell me what some of your challenges are? Sure, sure. And COVID is an interesting example. You know, I think that if you look at that situation, we had something we had to react to very quickly. And, and we were looking at a situation in which I think our employees, our families, there was a pretty wide degree of risk tolerance. You know, we certainly had some folks who said, gosh, I really wish we didn't have to take all these precautions. Can't we just go forward? Can we move faster? Others have said, you know, until this whole thing is over, you know, I'm going to be really, really careful. And, and I think we had to figure out how to communicate really effectively and clearly to a very broad constituency. And, and I think that communication piece just becomes really essential. In a school this large, where people are deeply engaged, you have to do a lot of listening. You have to be willing to take information in from many different areas. And you have to recognize that sometimes what you thought was going to be the right path actually turns out not to be. And you've got to be willing to readjust. And I think that that's one of the things that I'm constantly reminded of. That too, you're kind of walking a line that also is, you know, at the end of the day, you're going to have to make a decision. And you're going to have to make it with the best information that you've got and explain it as clearly as you can. So I think a lot of it is trying to communicate well enough to be collaborative, to acknowledge when you make a mistake, to be willing to change course, but also when when called for to go ahead and lay out what you think really is the right course and to explain why as clearly as you can. I like what you said right there about, you know, having to make a decision and then to clearly explain and communicate why you made that decision. I mean, there's so many leaders out there that make decisions, but then, you know, they don't explain why they made that decision. And can you share more, President Mike, about what you feel the greatest leaders do beyond communication? You know, I think ultimately really strong leaders build very effective teams. That's one thing that I think is absolutely crucial. They're very good at ensuring that the people that they work with feel deeply invested, feel that they're valued, that they ultimately can contribute in a meaningful way. I think that's really important not only for people you would think of as sort of senior administrators or senior policy makers, but I would say throughout an entire organization, you know, whether it's, you know, at Punahou thinking about folks who work across the entire campus in all kinds of different roles, everybody needs to believe and to recognize the truth that they are making significant contributions to the broader mission of the institution. And I think that's really crucial. So I think really good leaders are quite skilled at trying to have that kind of engagement. I think that really good leaders also are willing to invest some time and some energy in ensuring that their team continues to grow and develop. I think that's also very important. To give a specific example, sometimes I've heard, you know, leaders of independent schools say things like, you know, well, my job is to hire really great teachers and then just get out of the way and let them do their thing. And that's always left me scratching my head a little bit. You know, it's actually deeper than that. I think the job is certainly to hire the best people you can, but then you want to give them the chance to keep growing, to keep learning, to keep improving. We all want to get better at what we do over the course of our careers, over the course of our lives, and great leaders help provide an opportunity for people to do that. And I think that's really essential. It applies not only to school settings, but to really any kind of professional setting. This idea of growth, of continuing engagement, I think is really crucial. It's been fascinating and troubling to me actually to see in the past year or so, certainly in the wake of COVID, what some folks are referring to is the great resignation, you know, people deciding that that's it. I'm done with this career. I'm leaving. I've had it. But it makes me wonder about the extent to which it becomes really crucial that people have the chance to continue to feel fulfilled by their work, to derive a sense of meeting, and to continue to feel like they're growing and learning. That's crucial for schools in particular. We're all about teaching and learning. Everybody on the campus ought to be learning, not just the students and the teachers, but on a good day, people like myself, administrators. But I think it also parallels into many different forms of forms of life and forms of work. You really do need to, and good leaders will provide those opportunities for people to grow. I absolutely agree with you. I mean that, you know, personal growth is so important because the better every individual gets, the better the team gets collectively. And I mean, the entire Punahou school gets better. And President Mike, you have both of my books, and I want to ask you, what are some principles that stood out to you in the books? You know, Rusty, I think your broader emphasis on character and your broader emphasis on what it takes to build a team. You know, I think that yourself is a very successful coach. And in the experience that you've had working with young people, trying to help them achieve, trying to be at their very best when it counts the most. I think that one of the things you've reflected on is the extent to which you're really trying to build an environment in a team in which character really counts. And that's not just about perfecting a serve or figuring out how to handle a volley or when you should move closer to the net and where to position yourself. It's really about how you take setbacks. How do you learn from experiences which are really hard? How do you continue to grow when you face a disappointment for a loss? How do you respect the people who challenge you? Because at the end of the day, you need to respect in athletics, you need to respect your opponents because they make you better. I think there's an extent to which your approach centering on these questions of character is really important. I think there's a tendency so often, and you see this certainly in the way professional sports gets covered, to sort of glorify the people who win at all costs and to pay attention only to the bottom line and the final outcome. But I think at the end of the day, people who succeed and win oftentimes do so not so simply because they're technically strong, but because they have that deeper reserve of character. They know how to respond to setbacks. They respect the people they compete with. They recognize each opportunity is a chance to grow. I think that really matters, and it's one of the principles which I think flows out of the coaching and work you've done. President Mike, when I first became head coach of the boys varsity tennis team, that was when I decided my number one priority was going to be develop champion athletes of character first and then great tennis players second. I think that's what going beyond the lines is all about. Like you said earlier, Punahou is all about giving students opportunities and really trying to make them as well rounded as possible. Now, what do you feel in terms of like, I know that what's a great thing right now with you is you're also teaching a history class, right? And advanced history, is that correct? Yeah, I teach the, I'm one of a few teachers who teach the advanced placement US history course. Yeah. Now, how does that help you keep in touch with the vibe and pulse of really what's going on on the front lines with the students? Yeah, I love doing it. I'm a historian myself. My PhD is in American history and I was a history professor for 13 years before I became an administrator at the college level. And for me, it's very satisfying to be in that environment with really bright, engaged, curious young people. I think it reminds me also why a school like ours exists. At the end of the day, and maybe this is analogous to your work as a coach, I certainly hope that my students will remember some of the key things that we're talking about with respect to the Constitution or why this element of the civil rights movement was so important or how these changes in demographics have affected politics in the US. But at the end of the day, I also want them to remember that this process of engaging with the past, trying to make meaning of it, contributing to it, that that's something that citizenship requires. And it's something that they can do, and I hope they feel empowered to do that. I also hope they walk away from a class like that with the ability to make an effective argument to learn from other people, to write beautifully, to think analytically, and that those things endure. But it does really remind me of why we're doing what we're doing. It also reminds me again of that social and emotional dimension of education. Whether I'm running a class discussion, if I'm running a class discussion, it's my job as an instructor to make sure that every student in that room feels that they're confident enough to contribute, that they're going to be valued, they're going to be listened to, that they can really add to what we're all learning together. They need to not only learn, but they need to feel good about doing it. And part of my job is to create an environment and a culture in which students can do that, even when we're talking about something that's controversial or difficult. And it also reminds me finally that ultimately these are teenagers. They're going through all kinds of really significant personal growth and challenges. And you've always got to be with that in mind. And so for me, it's been really interesting. For most of my career, I taught college students or graduate students. And now I'm teaching a younger population of Punahou School juniors. And that's really been exciting, very eye-opening. Well, President Mike, I'm sure they're really excited and really fortunate to have the president of Punahou be an instructor to them. And I want to ask you about the Punahou Carnival. The carnival is so, so popular. But why is it such an important community event? And where do the proceeds go? Yeah, so Rusty, the carnival ultimately creates revenue, which all goes to support student financial aid. And so all of the proceeds from the carnival go to provide the financial aid that students need to be able to attend the school. And that's really important because alongside the donations that our alumni and friends of the school have given to us, the carnival provides funds that help Punahou remain what we call need blind in admissions. That means that at the time that we're admitting students, our admissions office does not have any idea about whether or not that family actually has the capacity to pay for a Punahou education. This means ultimately that we could admit students of real promise and real potential, regardless of what their family circumstances are. And that's really important. It creates a kind of level playing field for us. And then we do our very best to meet the full demonstrated need of every family that we enroll. And so the carnival has really been a crucial engine for that. The other dimension of the carnival, in fact, there are a couple of things I would point to, the other two things I guess I would point to beyond the financial aid that it generates, is it really does enable our entire community to come together in a meaningful way. So you have parents, teachers, staff, people, alumni, friends of the school, all working shoulder to shoulder on behalf of this cause that they really care about. And that's really exciting. It bonds our whole community together. I know when I've been standing in the line making malasadas talking to parents, that's been really great. I've really, really enjoyed that. And finally, you know, it's really an event which is largely student led to the junior class at Punahou is largely responsible for carrying out the carnival. It's a chance for the students to take on real leadership. And in the past couple of years, you know, I think given the way in which we had to adapt carnival to unprecedented situations in the environment, you know, those students had to be really creative. They had to be innovative. They had to do things that kind of went beyond what was already sort of in the book, which would be normally given to them. So they did really creative things. We had driving movies on middle field here on campus. We had live music performances. We used much more of the campus in ways that we had never done before. And the students really came up with that. So I give them a lot of credit. Well, you know, it's I love everything that you shared right there. And there's so many different dynamics that, you know, the Punahou carnival does. I mean, and how it affects everybody in our community. But President Mike, I like that Punahou offers such a wide range of sports and activities to their students. I mean, I think that that's a huge positive for the students at Punahou. How important is it to you that, you know, these students being exposed to these sports and various activities might possibly be able to find their passion and pursue their passion while they're at Punahou? Yeah, your point is something really important, Rusty. And I think students find that sense of passion and meaning and value in lots of different ways. And for many of our kids, that does happen outside the classroom that happens oftentimes in athletics. I know, you know, I ran cross country and track here for a number of years was fortunate enough to be a part of some teams that won state championships. It was really meaningful to me. You know, I really became very close to my teammates, to my coaches, that sense of confidence and resilience and discipline, which I developed there, skilled over into the rest of my life. And I remained very grateful for that. It's been interesting to me to watch the extent to which students find and develop that sense of meaning in lots of different ways across the school. Some of our students do it in theater or in dance, in visual art. Others do it in a different sort of organization, whether they're working on the yearbook or the school newspaper. But a lot of students develop and discover a talent that even though they possessed, they find something that they really enjoy and derive a deep sense of meaning and support from from their fellow students. And they make lifelong friendships, which is, which is really amazing. I mean, to this day, some of my very closest friends are people I either competed with or in some cases competed against. And we've just become really, really close. And I am forever grateful for that. Well, I love hearing all of that, President Mike. And, and you know, I know that Punahou, I mean, complacency never happens at Punahou. Do you believe that success happens because of creative ideas and different solutions? I do, I do. And, and I think, you know, a really strong institution is going to be continually innovating. The challenge for a school like Punahou, I think, is to innovate from the position of strength. There are lots of institutions that innovate, I think, because they have to, you know, they are sort of in a position where because of their place in the market or their circumstances, they really absolutely have to innovate or they will face extinction. We're in a really strong position. But innovation needs to go forward here still with a strong sense of urgency. We have to be continually asking ourselves, what are the things that we do really well? What are the things we're really proud of, we feel good about? And where are the areas where we think we have an opportunity to grow and to improve? A big part of that too is also measurement. You really do need to get serious about trying to assess and figure out how you measure where you think you're succeeding. How do you know if you're actually doing what you set out to do? So that's really important too. And some things are fairly easy to measure. Other things are really challenging. And teaching and learning and learning in particular is not always easy to measure. You can use things like standardized tests, but ultimately you want to get things that are deeper than that. You want to get a sense of why students are motivated to study. What excites them the most? Where do you see the highest levels of engagement around students? So that I think becomes really important. So I really think a school like this one, we need to stay hungry. We need to continue to innovate, to look forward and to figure out how best to serve our students. Now, what are your thoughts about how quickly technology is advancing and changing? And what is your vision for the future? That's a really interesting question. I think these rapid technological shifts are both at once a challenge, but also a huge opportunity for us. The challenge of course is one that we read about and continue to hear about, which is that more and more kinds of professional work, more and more tasks are capable of being replaced by increasingly sophisticated algorithms and technologies. And so artificial intelligence in many cases has continued to grow and expand in such a way that a lot of theorists and people looking at this predict that there are areas of employment today which will become in some respects obsolete. I think the opportunity though, honestly, is to begin thinking more and more creatively about the things that employers can't teach and machines cannot do. And increasingly, a lot of that turns on these questions of originality and creativity and your ability to draw connections across different areas. It's been exciting to me as well for us to harness some of these tools. We do a lot of really interesting work on campus using artificial intelligence as a teaching vehicle. We use it, for example, in math teaching. Students work through a set of problems and we can work through a system that helps identify the specific areas they need further growth and then push more challenges of that kind toward a student. We're also using a lot more things like virtual reality technology or augmented reality technology, giving students the chance to actually build environments. You know, if you're studying something in the past, maybe you're studying Ancient Rome, well, we can't go visit Ancient Rome. You can see some of the remaining structures, but students could build Ancient Rome and they could build it through VR and they could explain why they're building what they're building and you can sort of conceive of a different world even if that world no longer exists. So harnessing that creativity and using it in an entrepreneurial way is something that we'll see more and more of our students and graduates doing. And I just find it amazing that, you know, how Punahou continues to be on the cutting edge of innovation. And President Mike, what do you feel is the best advice you ever received? You know, when I was in graduate school, I had a professor who was really brilliant. Her name was Joyce Appleby and she was one of my American history professors when I was doing a PhD at UCLA. And I remember at one point I was working on a paper and I felt like I was just sort of stalled out and becoming increasingly frustrated that I just couldn't really sort of figure out my argument. And remember, I went to go talk to her and visited her in her office and we had this great conversation and she looked at me at one point and she said, well, Mike, you know, remember, thinking is what you do when you don't know what to do. And I really liked that. It was sort of a very gentle way for her to be saying to me, you know, there are times when you just have to wrestle with the uncertainty and thinking can be hard and dealing with that sense of uncertainty can be hard, but you can't be daunted by it. You know, you sometimes just have to recognize that's what you're going to have to do is go out and think some more. And I think sometimes, you know, we tend to expect the answers to come easily and we get a little frustrated if they don't come easily. And that was for me a really good reminder that, you know, sometimes thinking is just hard work and it takes time and you have to allow that time. Go talk to more people, think about it some more, see what you can learn, see what you can come up with. Today, a lot of people refer to that as kind of a growth mindset. You know, you're trying to ultimately recognize maybe you can't do it right now, but that you will be in the future and you have to remember that. President Mike, I think that was great advice from her. And I really want to thank you for taking time to join me on the show today. Thank you, Rusty. It's really a pleasure to be with you and really excited to have the chance to talk. Thanks so much. Thanks, President Mike. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I hope that President Mike and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.