Episode #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.