 Think tech away. Civil engagement lives here. Yeah, community matters, and it's not just little communities, it's bigger communities. It's national communities, it's global communities. And here we are with Bob Fishman to talk about communities. And the title of our show, Yes, We Are Already Living in Interesting Times Out of the Old Chinese Proverb. Hi, Bob. Bob Fishman joins us on the mainland. Thanks so much for being with us today. Pleasure to be here, Jay. Thank you. So I wanted to tap your brain and get your wisdom and your perception and your vision on some things that are happening. And I'm particularly interested and excited to do that and view this book I'm reading. And the book is called 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by a guy named Yuval Noah Harari, who is an Israeli historian, teaches in Hebrew University, and I think it's Tel Aviv and has written three books along these lines. The first one was about the past. The second one was about the future. And the third one, which is the one I'm reading now, and it's called 21 Lessons, is about now leading to the future. Sea change. It's all about sea changes and evaluating where we are and trying to get a bead on what's really happening under our feet. And Bob Fishman is my guru about that. So here we are. We're going to really make some introspection here, or extrospection. So the first segment, we're going to talk about interesting times in Hawaii and the U.S. And the first thing we're going to talk about is relationships. So all about relationships. In this case, it's the relationship between Hawaii and the mainland. And it's changing, right, Bob? Yes, it is. In many ways, Hawaii's issues have become more insular, but in many important ways, Hawaii has gravitated toward the mainland way of thinking, the mainland way of speaking information. And when you say the mainland, it's not monolithic either. We are closer to Southern California and to the West Coast than we are to other parts of the U.S. mainland. Once upon a time, back in the 1960s, when I showed up in Hawaii as a young squirt, Hawaii was very sensitive about being told what to do and what to think and how to live by the mainland hollies. The mainland hollies that showed up as business executives did a good job of building a wall between themselves and the local population. But Hawaii was going through the beginning of a very positive and unifying evolutionary process. As it sought and achieved statehood in 1959 and in the early 60s, we were all together in trying to earn a seat at the table in the United States as one of the 50 states. We were trying to be economically self-sufficient. We were trying to set up guidelines for ourselves to preserve our environment. And we started a crusade which lasted about 10 years for equality among the various racial elements of the melting pot of Hawaii. Leaders related to that, people related to that. There were very few people who took a position against the notion of the melting pot and the notion that we should be sitting at the table with the rest of the other 49 states. And our ticket to ride was tourism. Our ticket to ride was the beginning of some research and development and the beginning of a university system, which was part of the crusade that Governor Burns pursued when he was elected in 62 and he stayed in office for almost 12 years. George Ariyoshi was the fiscal conservative and the visionary who believed very strongly that we should try to plan our society better so that even to the extent of precluding people from moving from the mainland to Hawaii which he tried to, he investigated seriously and was found that that proposition was constitutionally weak. He launched a state plan which attempted to get the legislature to try to be visionary and how to plan the state so that it could grow and we could live comfortably within it. At the end of the Ariyoshi era, John Wahey became governor and his major, his basic contribution was opening up government. It was under his leadership or his administration that the Information Practices Act was passed and all of a sudden people had remarkable access to government records which they never had before. That opened up the opportunity for controversy. It opened up the opportunity for the media to play and do depths that it never had done before. Of course, that was a period of time when Hawaii was spending on infrastructure at a rate that it could not afford. Under the Kaitano administration in the 90s, what wound up happening was we had a hiccup in our economy, we had a hip-hop hiccup in our infrastructure and we slowed down a lot of this growth that we had enjoyed for the decades ahead. The Lingle administration showed more of a management instinct and when the Lingle administration was over, ironically what I thought was the greatest opportunity for Hawaii under Abercrombie was to socially re-engineer our society at the hand of someone who was educationally qualified and motivated to do it. I think he found the task was too much for him but that was the beginning of the current stress that our society in Hawaii is facing now and that is a massively shrinking middle class and a major drop in the opportunity for social mobility, very similar to what it was right after statehood when if you wanted to become a doctor you had to go to the mainland to get the education but we have evolved and we're actually starting in some ways all over again because Hawaii isn't one society anymore as you pointed out at the beginning of your talk Hawaii is multiple societies all operating in parallel and each of which is seeking its own leaders and each of which is nurturing their own values. So we left the whole idea about the melting pot. You know I always like to make the dichotomy between the early days as cargo cult where whatever came from the mainland had to be good and then the later days as paranoia whatever came from the mainland had to be bad. And I think we've gone on that kind of transition. I don't think we're in the melting pot anymore, we're somewhere else and there are people who would really rather have all the hallways go home and I wonder how you feel about that. I don't know actually that's an interesting way of looking at it. I think that you have pockets of political and social energy throughout the state. If you go out to the community in Keihei, it's hard to find a Democrat around there. It's very Caucasian. The Walea Keihei part of Maui, parts of West Maui are very Caucasian. If you go out to what used to be a very Filipino community and Waipahu is now a heavy Polynesian community out there, Samoans and others from other Polynesian environments, I think what you see is a major shift in the social profiles in Hawaii and the hallways are not the issue anymore. Hallways over the last 10 years have grown to become about 50 to 55% of the Polynesian population. But the entire population isn't melted together as it was at one time, which is one of the reasons we have such controversy in pursuing our political leaders because we have microcosms within the political community where once upon a time there were issues like statehood and like environment and like fairy treatment. Those are things which brought people together because political leaders were able to underscore their importance for all. We've run into a real problem with the ability to manage government in the last 10 years or so. I happen to be one who's tried to manage government back in the 1980s and I think that's one of the biggest issues I happen to be one who's tried to manage government back in the 1990s and I believe in the truth that government is fundamentally a manageable enterprise. Anybody who tells you that he can run a government is probably exaggerating, nobody runs government, they steer it. If they're good, they steer it. I'd like to add a thought to that, Bob. I think George Ariyoshi, as you mentioned, was involved in this is government or somebody has to manage foreign investment. In an island state, especially which is part of the United States and we do have a commerce clause, it's not that you can bar anybody but you do have to manage the money, the investment, the projects coming in and nobody else can do it but government. So if government can't manage the local society it's more difficult still for government to manage the enterprises coming in especially when those enterprises are bent on trying to get government to approve their projects and so I wonder how you feel about that. I think there was a time when we were sentient on the issue of managing foreign investment. I think Frank Fosse might have been part of that but I think now we really don't even try to manage foreign investment it just comes in and does what it wants and there are sometimes very adverse effects when that happens. What do you think? Well, I think you're right in your focus there. I happen to think that investment that comes from offshore whether it's from the mainland United States or from the west from the Orient is easier to focus and easier to guide through a political process or through an approval process because the constituents, the stakeholders are not part of Hawaii, they're not here and if you take a stand that they don't like then with the possible exception of them providing resources to your political opponent or giving some kind of exposure to someone who's not your friend that might cause you some problems they have really no recourse except to take what you say and that's what Frank Fosse did. He made the onus of building a golf course on Oahu a very expensive proposition for Japanese investors and some of whom paid it and some of whom said no, that's just too much and they had no recourse, they had nowhere to go except just to go away and go to somewhere else and do their development elsewhere. I think that the real problem is that money has become a much more important commodity in guiding public policy than ever in recent history not only political contributions but also the ability to make stakeholders in political groups very wealthy by hiring them or by investing in them in ways that are legal the FBI and the government should go after them but the ways that are legal are investing in joint ventures and purchasing real estate for example, you have a wonderful set of buildings that are being built in Kakako today I would say a very large percentage of the very expensive properties will be what economists call traded commodities which are not intended for local people ever to live in and I wonder whether anybody will ever live in them but they're being purchased as financial investments which will make them money over time and give them with some credibility a place in Hawaii to be part of our society but these are ways for very wealthy investors very wealthy stakeholders to participate in the society without breaking the rules Yeah, so if you talk about management of the investment and you talk about management that is appropriately respectful of the future of these islands and of the social groups on these islands and how the islands will evolve going forward a lot of people say that those commodity buildings are really not a good idea because it's only so much land and that's the wrong direction and so the question I suppose is where did we lose touch with our own future where along the line of the leaders that you mentioned did we stop caring about the future of the people in the melting pot how has leadership changed over these years how has politics changed and how has growth and management of foreign investment changed over those years can you say Well yeah, I think first of all I think the notion of leadership has morphed from what was early on in Hawaii's youth it's stated youth very transformational we transformed we moved from Governor Bill Quinn in 1962 59 to 62 the first elected governor of course he was appointed by Eisenhower before stated to Governor Burns, to John A. Burns and the society didn't shutter when that happened there were a lot of policy changes, a lot of faces changed Burns focused on important his crusades but on the whole he was a very transformational leader Burns was a very transformational leader the kind of a leader that had the ability to transform the followers to his way of thinking on moral issues on visionary issues on longer term issues because they believed that inside this leader there was goodness or wisdom or some character attribute that was worthy of following and that particular type of transformational leadership we saw it with John F. Kennedy we saw it with several other national leaders people liked the person's image the people liked the public the following could identify with the values and the morality of this individual and the visionary underpinnings what I hear you saying Bob is that a transformational leader is more nutritious, more helpful more visionary pointed in the right direction and we take a short break and when we come back I'd like to talk about the other kind of leadership that you mentioned to me before and that's the transactional leader and distinguish between one and the other and where we are now in terms of the quality of leadership that's Bob Fishman former city managing director we'll be right back to talk more with him about the sea changes in Hawaii he's the energy man here on Think Tech Hawaii and they won't let me do political commentary so I'm stuck doing energy stuff but I really like energy stuff so I'm going to keep on doing it so join me every Friday on Stand Energy Man at lunchtime, at noon on my lunch hour we're going to talk about everything energy especially if it begins with the word hydrogen we're going to definitely be talking about it we'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner how we can make the world a better place just basically save the planet even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore we got it nailed down here so we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stand Energy Man, aloha aloha, I'm Wendy Lo and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii and on our show we talk about taking your health back and what does that mean it means mind, body and soul anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about whether it's spiritual health mental health, fascia health beautiful smile health whatever it means let's take healthy back aloha okay we're back on Community Matters here on a Given G Monday I'm talking with Bob Fishman one of my favorite guru people my personal guru when it comes to Hawaii history and understanding it and understanding the sea changes and understanding these interesting times and how we got here so we're talking about leadership and leadership is so important in any community certainly it's important nationally now too and we had a little about transformational leadership which is a very important thing of a concept for Hawaii but then it led to or maybe it competes with transactional leadership so Bob Fishman can you tell us what transactional leadership is sure first let me just add one thing transformational leadership per se is not a positive thing it is a type of leadership that in any type of a formal organization has to be balanced with other types of disciplines and talents and the ability to transact business and balance out with a transactional profile as well when you're overly transactional when you're overly transformational to the exclusion of some of the realities some of the back and forth realities you wind up with some of the frustration for example that President Jimmy Carter had in trying to change the world into a more moral place he was probably right in the way he was trying to accomplish but from a practical point of view he may not have had the toughness or the negotiating toughness to go forward with it transactional leadership is very simple you do something for me and I do something for you you pay me the rent and I'll let you stay in the government you give me money for my campaign and I will give you access that's why ethics laws and politics are so difficult to write and so difficult to enforce because money and resources have become an extremely important part of seeking and holding public office these days we have a President of the United States right now who believes that transactional leadership is something for me and I do something for you you say something nice about me and I'll say something nice about you is the way to do business is the way to be a leader that is in my mind a questionable approach to being a national leader but you said that we need them both we need them both we need to have a balance and transactional leadership sounds like it's just an inch away from corrupt leadership we have that with Trump so the question is how much can we tolerate before it goes off the rails I hate to use that term rails but it seems appropriate well I hear what you're saying there the person of the let's make a deal person who gets into an enterprise leadership is not necessarily a bad thing there's some folks who have done extremely well in a let's make a deal environment especially when you're talking about people in those enterprises that are transactional in nature political leadership social leadership the ability to become the first citizen of Hawaii as the governor of Hawaii is a combination of these attributes you can't just pull the levers of government Harry Truman said about Eisenhower that how does he think Eisenhower will do and he said well I think the general is going to be very surprised that when he gives an order not a goddamn thing happens he really did say that and the point of the matter is that you need to be able to cause people to want to do what you want them to do which in some cases is transactional but it's also laced with a very heavy of visionary behavior visionary leadership which is transformational government leadership is a peculiar hybrid and when somebody gets up there and says I will fight for you that image of a leader as a fighter may not be the kind of leader that we're looking for they get up there and say I love you and I want everybody to love each other and we have to have a peaceful place that also may not be the kind of leader that everybody's looking for I mean there's a situation in Hawaii where after Linda Lingle there was a very acrimonious gubernatorial primary and the public rejected one of the candidates and elected another and four years later that is precisely what happened which is how Governor E. Gay became governor they rejected one of the gubernatorial democrats democratic office seekers and they approved another in this particular case the issues surrounding the current governor Governor E. Gay have to do with his image and his profile and how aggressive he's perceived to be or how well he's believed to be able to manipulate the mechanisms of a complex government I'm getting it I'm getting it so you can have all high ideals and everything but in order to make it work make it happen make government work you know for the community you've got to pull the numbers of government and that's the practical side of things and it's the transactional side but I guess it's transactions made as an agent for part of the government itself the government is making the transaction rather than you putting your name on a hotel well the stakeholders in a process in the process of government leadership the stakeholders have become really good at protecting their states and eating them too actually but the stakeholders are those people who guide public policy and the legislature and those are the most significant the most prominent of course are public employee union leadership who guides public policy in our legislature they've worked hard over the years and earned that status with members of the legislature the stakeholders are those people who come in with major the willingness to to cause people to get resource for their campaigns the stakeholders in many cases are those people have points of view social points of view the stakeholders are holding are driving our government whether it's money or whether it's point of view whether it's it's the loudness of their voices we have become a transactionally motivated government because stakeholders are really good at what they do to the exclusion of the person who really can't keep up with all this what I get what I get is that if you have all transactional all stakeholders everybody doing self-interest then you're doing that at the expense of transformational and you lose vision you lose sort of a view over the horizon you lose that idealism that maybe you need to have so it goes back to your point about balance you lose the wealth that the process of democracy brings into it you know probably the best the best way I've heard anybody describe it recently was in Barack Obama's speech last Friday at the University of Illinois he said listen one in five people young people I guess he meant under 30 and 5 voted in excuse me in 2014 only 1 out of 5 people in that age group voted in 2014 you know when you have the vast majority of people in a particular age group who are voting in a midterm election how do you expect them to be represented in the government that is elected as a result of the election process that goes to the question of trust and we wanted to discuss that with you the low voter rate is really appalling and of great concern because it means that the essential compact between citizen and government is being eroded degraded and so forth and to me it reflects a lack of trust by the electorate in the government this is of great concern are you concerned about this yes I am there are two levels of looking at it the first is that people have to have trust in their representatives to represent their point of view honestly and compassionately but they also have to have trust in the professionals in government to be able to do what it is that they've been hired to do there's always been some kind of cynical attitude toward people who take a government paycheck and don't deliver what they promise to do the second thing is that we need to trust not only the character of the people that are in positions of responsibility but also the competence of the people who are in positions of responsibility and in many cases you have a situation which is where in the process in the pursuit of preserving the process you actually forgive people from doing anything positive or anything productive as a result of it I had a sign on my desk when I was managing directors that said if we all work together very well and we're sensitive to each other's issues and concerns and we watch out for the rules and the regulations of the government and the place it's possible by working very hard we can all accomplish absolutely nothing and what really and the point of the matter is is that you have to be able to accomplish what you promise the part of the problem which has eroded trust over the years is that political aspirants, political people who attempt to seek and achieve and hold political office promise what cannot be delivered because it gets them what they want it gets them the votes that they want it gets people to believe that hey they're going to go out there and fight for them even if it's not achievable in many cases they don't even know if it's achievable so it's entirely possible we may wind up with things that are either unachievable or unaffordable or unmanageable like we have with some megaprojects now that are going on in our state that could have been better engineered and better designed over the times that they were proposed. Well that goes to the question of the entertainment factor that you and I were talking about the sports competition that you and I were talking about and part of the complicit in that if not a major factor in that is the way the media handles it if the media makes it into a sports competition if the media sucks in on distraction because you know there are politicians around who try to distract us distract us to forget the promises they made the lies they made they try to move us ahead into other issues every day so we can't remember what they said and we are cows many of us we are sheep and the media helps us become cows and sheep because they go along with the distractions and the sports arena kind of approach and the entertainment you know to me all these things working together what I just described is a tremendous erosion in the ability of government to lead the ability of the people to feel aligned with government and to trust government and ultimately an erosion of our democratic process do you have any thoughts about that yes the first of all I agree with you about the media the media's purpose in our era in our time is to spark emotion it's to accelerate change it's to become relevant to the way that we live in our American society I have found that over time the media accepts very little responsibility for the consequences of its participation any more than the folks who are calling a football game or a wrestling match except any responsibility for the consequences of one or more of the athletes being hurt the media reinforces polarization especially in a tribalism mode that we are right now where television stations and publications have found audiences sufficiently large audiences to be able to sustain themselves as enterprises the enterprises that are emerging from this modern era in the media world are different from what they were 30 or 40 or 50 years ago there are no George Chaplains and Bud Smizers around anymore to be able to hold the flag for truth and conscience truth and conscience are not part of the priorities that I see in the modern media if you turn on any of the cable commentary stations today they may as well be covering a football game or a world cup soccer game they may as well be covering other types of competition other than political competition and when that distinction fades we wind up with a situation where the public is enjoying or not a vicarious set of thrills by watching players who contend and compete some are destroyed some are edified and we take a look at it and say what is really going on over here we're heading for as a result of all this as a result of the Trump era as a result of the organized effort to stand up to what is considered by many to be unfortunate leadership in our country and the history of media vigilanteism that we haven't seen before and the reason for that is that it makes good business the reason for that is that there is a battalion of investigative reporters where at one time we only had Jim Dooley working for the advertising you know and it's not about delivering information anymore it is about calling a competition providing commentary in a competition and accelerating the level of energy and anxiety in the society that follows it I wish I could feel a little bit more sanguine about the outcome of all this I think that we're running into a situation where the lack of trust in our political leadership is going to be filled with something we will trust somebody or some institution for a time until we find that that is not the place to go you know but I have a feeling that what we know in the media today is very very different it's very difficult for example to make a local print publication profitable it's very difficult for it to sustain it I mean I talked to Mike Fish when he was the publisher of the advertising and the people they were bringing in in fact it was Gannett brought somebody in that was going to cover Hawaiian affairs and he was very proud that he got this young this young woman who was really good coming from a community somewhere in the Far East in the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and they were going to send her to the University of Hawaii for a summer course so she could learn a little bit about the Hawaiian culture so she could be the reporter on Hawaiian affairs for their advertising for the paper you know and I go wait a minute you might as well be a corporate entity on Mars selling a service to the people of the state of Hawaii in the form of delivering news you don't have any steak in the outcome of you don't have any steak in the consequences of what your news coverage is really all about and at the same time there's a dearth of reporters who are covering the city council you don't have anybody coming I think you have one person three quarter time covering the city council today and you have a couple of three people covering the legislature because it doesn't make sense financially for these newspapers to do it so we get poorer coverage more opinion and more participation in public in the public's need for entertainment and the arena of public affairs has become much closer to the world of entertainment than it's ever been before well we've got to do Bob is to have more conversations like this so we can remember what happened so we can sort of wrap our arms around it and understand the sea changes thank you so much for coming on the show Bob this is what think tech is all about we really appreciate it look forward to having another similar discussion with you going forward thank you Jay it's a pleasure to be here take care Aloha