26/10/2026
Everything is possible in Hospitality
I’m not quite sure where my love of hospitality came from, but at first my grandmother who worked in Private service inspired me with her cooking.
My own love was always cooking and culinary experiences and I soon discovered hospitality was much bigger. So the art of service was always about genuine care and kindness.
Maybe it’s naive, but I’ve always believed that everything is possible and as soon as somebody tells me it can’t be done, I ask: Why not? Then I’ll usually go and find a way.
My passion comes from the people I’ve worked for during my career and when you work for some of the employers I’ve worked for, finding a way wasn’t considered exceptional service, It was expected.
Excuses and reasons why something couldn’t be done was not acceptable, so I had to think differently, find another way and make it happen. Even if it was temporary, I’d find a way and then find a better way.
When somebody tells me, “It’s not possible,” I genuinely want to understand why. Is it really impossible, Or is it difficult, has somebody actually tried?
I remember working on a hotel opening where I repeatedly heard that things weren’t possible.
My experience tells me almost anything can be achieved when good people are given the opportunity, resources and confidence to make it happen. but you cannot tell people to “make the impossible possible” while simultaneously tying their hands behind their backs.
Give somebody no cutlery, insufficient staff or inadequate resources and you’ve created an operational problem. Give them an unreasonable leader who produces half-baked ideas and threatens to sack everyone when they aren’t delivered, and you’ve created something much more serious.
Inspirational leadership achieves the impossible but acting like a jerk and threatening people creates fear.
The best leaders I’ve worked got great results by creating the environment where you wanted to find the answer. You wanted to go further. You weren’t frightened of trying something different because you knew somebody trusted your judgement and they gave you the confidence to try new ideas.
Perhaps that’s where the Butler in me still comes through, when challenged I think: “How can we?” Because I still believe that most problems have a solution.
Sometimes you simply have to care enough to find it.
