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www.thecaterer.com Rescue stranded assets
Stembridge was keen to accelerate Iconic Luxury Hotels’ sustainability agenda with an interactive talk from Michael Penrose and Alexandra Smith, co-founders of the Sustainability Group. The pair warned against stranded assets, where businesses realise recently refurbished infrastructure is actually due to become obsolete by law in five to 10 years. Smith also challenged the perception that
“sustainability is less” when it comes to luxury. She says: “Sometimes sustainability is just a different point of view and a different way of doing things. People are willing to spend a bit more if it means they can see their spending money turned into sustainable value.” She adds that although it is hard to keep
Jason Fox Andrew Stembridge
track of what guests are doing in their rooms, effective communication can encourage people to make climate-conscious choices during their stay. “Sometimes it takes a little bit more planning and creativity, but that actually often ends in better opportunities.”
Alexandra Smith
to spark brainstorming sessions in the work- place. If people are struggling with finding inspiration, they should turn to “gamifica- tion”. He adds: “Get a whiteboard, grab 20 people from the sales team and tell them to imagine we are three times more expen- sive. How will you sell now? Think about the parameters you can move – a bigger budget or a bit of regulation that doesn’t exist. It could get people to think more creatively and they could diverge in conversation.” Qureshi adds that businesses should stop
trying to fix their weaknesses and instead con- sider enhancing the positives: “The route to greater success is to do something a little bit more. Success is about turning up the volume on what you are already good at.”
Jason Fox: “Hot debrief” The former UK special operations team leader who spent 20 years conducting counterterror-
www.thecaterer.com
ism and hostage rescue missions, spoke to del- egates about resilience. Jason Fox, or Foxy, as he is known on television shows such as Chan- nel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, recalled the res- cue of a New York Times journalist in northern Afghanistan on 9 September 2009 to illustrate how he dealt with highly stressful situations. Despite intensely distressing situations, including the death of a team member, he per- severed through the assignment. He was able to do this first by “giving myself a proverbial slap round the face, reminding myself that I had survived and done courses that made me capable of leading”, and secondly by “look- ing down the line of the ditch at the guys I’m responsible for”. He continues: “I love the blokes, but whether I like them doesn’t mat- ter. And that is what got me out of that ditch.” Fox says each mission ends with a “hot
debrief”, where every person talks about everything they did and why. “We do it whether
we fail or succeed, and that information goes into an after-action report. The training depart- ments read that and the lessons we learn we input into the other squadrons.”
Simon Maguire: “Stay positive” Simon Maguire, the former managing direc- tor of Luxury Family Hotels, spoke openly about his journey of recovery from alcoholism and painkiller addiction. He urged delegates to regularly set goals and try to surpass them through a combination of building habits, hav- ing a positive mindset, and developing a ‘tribe’ of people who support you. He found his own passion in training for
the world’s toughest single-day endurance race, Ironman. “There’s nothing wrong with failure. It’s
having the energy to go again, and that mind- set piece helps with that. You’ve got to try and stay positive,” he says.
24 November 2023 | The Caterer | 21
PHOTOGRAPHY: SAM SUTTERLIN
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