 Hi, I'm 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 former president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Hawaii, and he is the current president and CEO of the iconic Hawaii Theater in downtown Honolulu. He is Gregory Dunn, and today we are going Beyond Entertainment. Hey Greg, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Aloha Rusty, thank you. So good to see you Greg, and you know we are so lucky to have you as the leader of our Hawaii Theater, and I know that you're so excited now because it's officially reopened, and can you tell us about some of the upcoming events that you guys have scheduled? Well it's been a brutal 20 months for us to say the least, and now the light that was shining at the end of the tunnel has become something other than a train coming at us head on. We now have a phenomenal lineup of shows coming up, but this week we have a group called Crossing Rain that we're really excited about. It is Hawaii's boy band, so a group of young adults have gotten together, and they're going to be performing live on our stage with an in-person full capacity audience. So for us full capacity is having up to 1,400 of the seats filled, so we're really excited to welcome the guys in. We also have a Christmas special coming up, Makaha Kalikimaka, and then over Thanksgiving weekend Rani Chen, national international comedian, movie star is going to be on stage two nights, Friday and Saturday to say the least, and then we go into December, January, February, the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra is now the company and residence and artistic partners at the Historic Hawaii Theater, so we'll have the majority of the symphony performing at the theater over the course of the next several months. Well Rani is going to be absolutely hilarious. We sold out one of his shows already. We added a second because of demand. Well I wouldn't be surprised if you guys have to add a third show for him, right? We're crossing our fingers. It's like the sold out shows help us to raise money to keep the theater open. You know that's been one of the things with stepping into running the Historic Hawaii Theater has been trying to figure out how do we get the theater to be able to survive absent any state or city and county support to run the operations of the theater when you know in a competitive landscape the theater has to compete with publicly subsidized venues like the Blaisdell Centers and the Waikiki Shell. We simply don't have the the largesse of the state government covering our capital expenditures. We have to earn the money and raise the money to keep the theater open. Greg, tell me a bit about the history of the Hawaii Theater. Well the Hawaii Theater was built by consolidated amusements and opened in September of 1922 which is a shameless plug. We're heading into our 100th season of operations in the state of Hawaii. So as the consolidated amusements built the theater as both a vaudeville house and as a movie house. So for opening night the theater was slated to film and screen three musketeers. Unfortunately on opening night the people packed into the house but the movie was still sitting offshore on a boat trying to come into the harbor. They couldn't get the movie in so instead they had a local opera star stand on stage and sing for folks and they did more of a vaudeville style production as the opening for the theater. And over the course of its life as it transitioned into a movie house in the 1940s you can see that the theater had first-run programs at the time it seated 1,800 people so it was one of the largest theaters in the state. And during the wartime that was a favorite spot in Chinatown for the GIs to stop in who didn't want to visit the the more surly and and seedy areas of Hotel Street. They would come to the Hawaii theater and enjoy a show. No that's really interesting hearing about you know the background of how it all began and wow coming up on that 100 anniversary and Greg what what is the mission of the Hawaii theater? Well as we have today the historic Hawaii theater is uh is owned and operated by a non-profit corporation. So private corporation with a board of directors that oversees the non-profit assets of the theater. The mission is to preserve and maintain the historic property as well as to promote Hawaiian arts and culture and provide a safe space for people to perform uh multidisciplinary arts programs and then to also act as an economic incubator to help promote Chinatown arts and culture district. So by bringing in 1,400 people to enjoy the theater uh every show on a weekend we help raise the economic profile of Chinatown. We help support hundreds of small mom mom and pop shops and restaurants and bars that are in the neighborhood and it's it's it's wonderful to be part of the fabric of a tight net historic community and the the historic Hawaii theater works to do that. Yeah I can see it it definitely creates a all these effects where it's a win win win situation with all the businesses around there that you just mentioned and Greg the interior of the Hawaii theater is absolutely beautiful and you guys run such a diverse range of entertainment I mean I've I've been there for concerts I've been there for pageants comedy shows I mean that doesn't that get you excited because you get to see it all right? Well I get to see it all and it makes me also uh one of the the most critical guests at other functions because you know we at at the Hawaii theater we we have this beautiful interior that that was restored in when the theater opened in 1996. So Sarah Richards led the effort to raise over 32 million dollars that allowed the nonprofit corporation to purchase the Hawaii theater and then restore the interior of it. Uh some of the this is one of the finest examples of this type of architecture that still exists in the state. Most of the theaters around the state have already been torn down uh we have a couple of other historic venues but none is as grand as the historic Hawaii theater. So Greg how so can you talk more about how the theater is funded and and how ordinary average people can help donate? Well the theater is is funded by contributions from donors as well as ticket sales and the ticketing fees that we have. We received some grants from the city or from the city and the state for programs and projects but we relied generally on the donations of the general public. So during COVID we received a small portion of our operating income from grants but over 800,000 dollars of our 1.2 million dollar operating budget during the the COVID period was supported by donors who went to HawaiiTheater.com it's TRE so HawaiiTheater.com and went to our donate page and clicked in and and helped support us both with one time gifts and also with recurring donations. So people setting up a five or a 10 or $20 monthly gift that would process automatically and go to support the theater and help to ensure that community groups like the ones that you mentioned the the halos and the folks that are putting on the the pageants and the school groups that want to use the theater are able to do so affordably. Nice that sounds really good and and Greg I notice when I drive by or I'm walking by there I notice that there's various messages that people can actually put up there how does that work? So as part of a challenge grant that we received from the Historic Hawaii Foundation and the Freeman Family Foundation to help repair and restore the neon sign that's on the front of the building our marquee. We came up with a program called marquee messages so we wanted to give people the ability to send a congratulatory wish of say a birthday or a thank you for someone's community service or some other way in which people could celebrate a marriage proposal we've had and even a gender reveal for a baby. People are able to do that. You can find out more information on our website under the marquee messages portion and you too could help give someone some some bright light in their life by supporting the Historic Hawaii Theater or a $150 gift you can get your message on the marquee all day. We do have some fine print that says you know obviously we we can't do anything that's commercial in nature. It can only be congratulatory and something that that sends someone well wishes but we can't promote a service or a product on the on the marquee. We'd like to keep it in in line with our mission. Well Greg that that's such a great idea that you came up with and you came up with that idea right knowing you. Yeah a little bit of marketing background never never hurts anyone. Oh that that's absolutely terrific and Greg what are what are some of your goals for the Hawaii theater moving forward? Well we have several large goals and one is the the theater itself has has been through a very difficult period operation. We made some very drastic staffing decisions and cuts. Pre COVID the theater had over 50 staff people. We wound up laying most of those people off during the pandemic and so we we operated and ran the theater with staff of three people during COVID. We've now doubled our staff we're up to six so we're working our way up incrementally and but it's also given us an opportunity to look at our business model and say for the type of organization we want to be going forward one that does both in person shows and a mix of digital content broadcasting what type of people do we need to support those mission driven activities. So we'll look at that we also need to take head on some deferred maintenance and issues that we've had. One of the things that the theater has suffered from over the years is is really a lack of general funding and support to maintain the facility. A great deal of money was put into place early on and now unfortunately the money stopped when the capital campaign was over but with a very old facility we have millions of dollars of deferred maintenance that needs to be addressed. The next big one is taking care of spalling on the concrete structure which is digging out the rusting rebar in the concrete repacking the concrete replastering the outside of the theater and then panking it. So we have both you know mission challenges and we have hardcore physical challenges we have to deal with. Oh that's a lot of stuff to do Greg and there's six of us. Now Greg you have my books and I want to ask you about leadership because I mean you're such a successful leader what are some key things that you feel the best leaders do? You know one of the simplest things is listen I think that you know and it's one of the things that you talk about is there's an inverse relationship between the the number of ears you have and the mouth you have so good leaders listen much more than they speak the same you have two eyes so you should read more than you than you talk you know and and I think that that ultimately in building organizations one of my my my favorite concepts that I've read comes from Stephen M. R. Covey and that's called in in his book the speed of trust it talks about building trust within teams and how you get your team members to trust each other because when you as you're bringing people together everyone naturally has a very competitive edge I mean we you and I both love tennis we you know we have that in common we know how competitive tennis players can be and then when you get into a doubles environment you're taking this very singular game you're putting that team aspect into it and trying to get people to play as a team and that the teamwork only really comes when people trust each other and they know that people are going to do what they say and and they're going to follow up and you can count on them and so for me building an environment where people can trust each other they can trust that when they want to bring something up they can be so safely without fear of retaliation or retribution or or being belittled for the type of of comment or suggestion they want to bring up through maintaining their self-esteem and but you know it also requires you to set ground rules and and have very clear expectations of what is appropriate communication what you know what are what's our language going to be as a group so those are are just the basic tenants that that I think are critical as you're looking to build teams and and to be a manager that that can provide successful results because one of the things that that many of us know we all have a lot of trophies on our shelves but those are just the words for what happened before you know we're only good as what our performance is on game day every day going forward. Well Greg I like that you mentioned about listening and trust and you touched a little bit on on communication and you know in my book I talk about how I give honest feedback I don't give good feedback or bad feedback I give honest feedback and how are you are you similar in that way where when you're leading your team members you give them a lot of honest feedback as well. Yeah absolutely and we we also encourage feedback cross cross team so we'll have opportunities where we sit down and we have a debrief so for example we just finished our our first live programs with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra in-house and we brought together the symphony staff and the hawaii theater staff we sat down we had a meeting to talk about what worked what we could improve and what really didn't work that we needed to get rid of and and being able to then establish with people that this is the feedback that we all need to be comfortable giving we need to take notes and say this was my perception of of what worked and what didn't work and and then listen to what everyone else's perceptions are and and to do so in a supportive and and friendly environment but then when we have to give the the real critical you know results and say you look this is where your your performance failed to live up to what our expectations are we have very frank conversations about it and and hold people accountable to what the ground rules are it's uh you know and it very much is in tennis if if the ball is outside the line it's outside the line it's like yeah in is in and out is out exactly it's like and there and there's no computerized replay to to help determine the the gray line it's like for us it's either in or it's out it's like no you're right about you know the open communication and and the importance of having open communication go both ways and Greg how how would you describe your leadership style wow well that's a tough one um you know the um I think that it's it's it's a good mixture of of caring but also so firm and and setting very clear expectations um I think that you know when when we're in a a customer focused operation we have to ensure that everything that we're doing generates a wonderful experience for our patrons because we we live on repeat business and your cost to acquire a new customer um when you've turned off an old one is very high so your cost to maintain existing customers is much lower and the way we do that is by setting clear expectations that we give outstanding experiences to patrons every day all the time and when we don't that's when we we fall down on our our brand promise and our delivery to the patrons so for us it's very critical to constantly ensure that that our our corporate culture is one that is in line with with what we want to do and also in line with my management style and supporting you know excellence all the time investing in the staff providing good feedback but also being caring and understanding um as a person and making sure that that we recognize that people have off days and you know and we don't we don't throw them off the team just because they've had an off day when we talked about what we can do to help improve their performance and in the next go around you don't throw them off the team I'm not I'm not as as hard charging of a coach as you were right now Greg you know when you're leading teams what's the biggest thing when you know with your employees that just absolutely drives you nuts that they do sometimes you know some of the best feedback that I received in my career came from my old boss at Nike uh so Mike Ramos uh and you might know him he's a a a storied volleyball coach in Hawaii I mean really phenomenal and and coming in when I when I worked at Nike one of the things that that we were always challenged with is that with the type of of management structure at Nike you're always looking for the best you want the best and so they're always looking for a flight players and Mike's Mike's philosophy was you know what you really want to do is find the be and see flight players with potential you want to find people with potential that are driven and are hungry and you can mentor and develop them and have them grow to be successful so by by taking that that that thought of his and and that you know that internal drive to say we want to find people that are driven we want to find people that that are looking to to step up and move up and develop themselves when I see that in in in our players and our and in our team within the theater that drives me and makes me really really excited and really happy because we're developing people we're helping them move and improve in their careers what drives me crazy is people that don't have to drive so I'm sorry it's a long way of getting around but there's you know so when I see people who don't have drive and they just want to show up and they they they just want to collect a paycheck and they're not delivering outstanding service they're they're not contributing the mission of the organization um you know it's like look if you want to be somewhere else choose to be somewhere else that's okay it's like well we'll be just fine and the theater will will be fine without you um or whatever team you're on will be fine without you but it's it then it puts us in a position where we have to help people make decisions about where they want to be in their lives and many times that's one of the things that is causing them to feel like they're dissatisfied in their their present uh occupational pursuit is they really haven't found that thing that drives them or they haven't found the passion that helps to fulfill them in their um in their career life oh I love hearing that because you're right it's it's all about finding your passion and and and that's what we I'm trying to have everybody do by you know reading the books as well and and Greg I want to ask you about when you were president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Hawaii what were some of the challenges that you were dealing with uh with the BBB? You know the BBB was a multifaceted organization uh the Hawaii um the Hawaii BBB was an independent corporation uh that operated under the principles of of of an international association of better business bureaus so you know we you had internal struggles constantly about how to how to to guide and judge what uh were allowable standards within the business community um it was a real challenge to to help all of the small businesses in the state recognize that they needed to stand up to to the the principles the BBB held as as ones that were required for accreditation um which were you know to play fair and be honest and and make sure that they were treating customers well and providing customers with an opportunity to provide feedback if they if they felt that the company was was not um handling their their complaints or their customer challenge as well you know so I think that the educational aspect of working with thousands of small businesses around the state and even some large ones you know some of the the biggest complaints we had were were large corporations that that felt like well you know we don't need to to follow the rules you know we're we're this company and we're the biggest and we're the best and and you know people you know forget uh and then you know from a a business development standpoint one of the biggest challenges was how do you take a legacy brand like the Better Business Bureau and bring it into the 21st century where it's a much more digital age and your your challenges to to help the association understand um that people have changed around them how they get information and and and view content is different than what it was 25 years ago uh consumers engage with businesses in a different way than they did 25 years ago so the um structurally the Better Business Bureau had to change to meet the needs of today's consumers and that was a another entirely different challenge. No that that makes sense I love hearing these insights and Greg when you were the leader of the BBB what are and you made some real significant improvements there what are some of those improvements that you're most proud of? Well I think the the biggest improvement that I'm the most proud of was the redesign and development of the BBB's global website. I was on the the operating committee for the International Better Business Bureau so that involved me going to Washington DC at least once a month and being a part of the team meetings that oversaw the development the design the review we you know some of the most interesting work in my career to have to to step up and learn uh what the latest transit technology consumer behaviors and and consumer desires and what kind of information they wanted and how they wanted to receive it. I think that it helped set me up for a more successful transition into the Hawaii theater where we wound up taking the Hawaii theater to a fully digital platform relatively quickly from 2017 through 2019 we developed a ticketing platform and and then that provided us the ability to transition into the the digital broadcasts that we had during COVID and it helped us to survive so when we we think about all of those trips to DC and the things that happen at the Better Business Bureau it all carries forward you know you're constantly improving your game as you go and it's it was a tremendous period in my life and and I miss the I miss the work at the Better Business Bureau but I'm glad that it's continuing under the leadership of the BBB of the Pacific we're really fortunate to have been able to merge the local Better Business Bureau in with the regional entity that ensured it would survive. Well you're a you're definitely a well-rounded leader you know knowing all of these things that you know Greg and I want to ask you whether it's professionally or personally what's a big adversity that you dealt with in your life so far? Oh boy that's a wow boy you really stumbled me on that one. I think the biggest adversity that I have to deal with is is recognizing the importance of balance between the work life and the personal life. There as executives we have so many demands on our time. There we have personal family demands, we have career demands, we have the the work that's in front of us today. We have this this easy access to communication and information so in the course of a day I have to field messages from email, text message, Facebook messenger, Instagram messenger, you know all these multiple ways that people and oh and the telephone it still works people can still pick up the telephone and call you. So how do you balance the time of all of the people that want to connect with you and talk with you and share information and potentially do business with you? With the reality of how much time you have you know many of us will work all day long and then we'll go home and have dinner and we'll work several hours at night while we're sitting on the computer and you know the laptop makes it you know feasible for us to do that until 11 o'clock at night and we go to bed and then we realize oh my gosh I didn't do anything for myself today. I didn't go to the gym, I didn't go and play tennis, I didn't go to the beach, I didn't enjoy this beautiful state that we live in and I think that for me that's been one of the challenges in having consistently driven high performance expectation positions is the that you know we all have to set expectations of what we're going to do for ourselves and scheduling then going to the gym, scheduling then the days that we're going to play tennis, scheduling then when we can take trips and vacation that's like those are the the things that happen the most challenged with oh I like that you shared that Greg because yeah it's all about balance and and really taking care of your health and having really good stress relief too because you know I know that you have 36 hour days I mean we only have 24 you got 36 I know how busy you are and you find a way to get all these things done but Greg you know your I feel so great that we were able to get you on the show today to really talk about the Hawaii theater and then really about leadership and creating this culture of excellence that you have done and I really want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today. Thank you Rusty and thank you for everything you do for the community your your book program and getting the books into the schools and and helping to create a community of readers that care and understand how to become good leaders themselves I think is very admirable you should be very pleased with the results. I'm going to keep moving forward with that thank you Greg. Okay thanks Rusty 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 Greg and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.