99: Darren Morrish, General Manager & COO, Tokyo American Club

Darren Morrish is the General Manager of the Tokyo American Club
and a numerous-time five-star hotel general manager throughout
Asia, including Japan. Mr. Morrish is a Chef by trade and has
been in the hospitality and hotel industry for many years. Mr.
Morrish has a long history with the hotel industry as his parents
were into the business of buying and selling hotels in Australia,
so Mr. Morrish grew up moving a lot and exposed to the world of
hospitality from an early age. Mr. Morrish wanted to start
working as early as possible, so he started out by becoming a
chef and then slowly moved out to the floor and worked his way
through different levels of management with different hotel
groups, both in Australia as well as stints in Malaysia,
Singapore, China before moving to Japan permanently in the early
2000s. Mr. Morrish also worked in Korea and says that his
experience there was very different from Japan.


 


Mr. Morrish says that to get people to be more creative is to
have meetings in smaller groups. He says that in Japan, the
smaller the group, the braver people feel to speak up and ask
questions, whereas in a large group of 300 people, people
typically would not ask questions. He says that Japan has changed
over the years, the change is slower than what might be expected
but compared to years ago, Japan has changed. In Japan, there are
some very incredibly creative people, and they tend to stand out
as there are fewer of them that go against the norm. He says that
when he wants staff to be creative or have open discussions, he
refers to Japanese success stories when talking with his
colleagues, as these are examples that his staff can relate to.
Mr. Morrish talks about Toyota or a local café as success stories
when speaking with his colleagues as they will be able to relate
to these examples more than they can relate to an example from
Australia.


 


Mr. Morrishs’ advice to someone coming for a posting to Japan
would be to have a lot of patience. He says Japan may not be
exactly what people think it is coming from outside and it is a
very old culture, so things do not change quickly and just being
mindful of that and being patient would go a long way. The second
piece of advice would be to get involved in the culture, immerse
yourself in the culture and build trust and enjoy your time in
the country. Japan can be lonely if you are coming alone, so
immerse yourself in the culture and meet other people. Another
piece of advice would be not to make a quick judgement to say
that Japan is different from anywhere else. He advises people to
be flexible and try and learn from Japan. He says Tokyo is quite
different from elsewhere in Japan and even Asia, it is perhaps
the only Asian city that operates globally in the region. The
diversity and the things you can experience in Japan is unique.
China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore are all quite different in
terms of experience and work culture and one should take this
time in Japan as an opportunity to learn and grow with the
culture.