Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Key Takeaways
- Alistair Darby believes lasting hospitality businesses must make decisions based on what they are building for future generations.
- Darby learned that businesses sometimes need to accept short-term costs to establish the reputation they want.
- Darby credits some of his greatest career growth to accepting difficult roles instead of choosing the safest promotion.
A hotel designed to stand for 100 years cannot be built around the concerns of the next quarter.
For Alistair Darby, CEO of Sir Richard Sutton Limited, that distinction has changed how he thinks about growth.
“How can you run a freehold hospitality business thinking quarterly?” Darby says. “It’s just insane.”
Darby spent much of his career working for public companies, where leaders were often forced to focus on the next financial update. Today, he leads a family-owned company whose portfolio includes hotels, farms and properties across the United Kingdom.
“The owners are not thinking about tomorrow,” Darby says. “They’re thinking about in 50 years’ time. What are our grandchildren going to inherit?”
That perspective shaped one of the company’s biggest decisions. Sir Richard Sutton Limited plans to demolish a building it owns in Mayfair and build a new hotel. With economic and geopolitical uncertainty affecting businesses worldwide, the board debated whether it was the right time to move forward.
“This is a hotel that’s not going to open for three and a half years, and it’s then going to stand there for 100 years,” Darby remembers someone saying. “Why are we preoccupying ourselves with today? We are building something for the future.”
One of Darby’s most important lessons about long-term growth came earlier in his career. A group of bars in Germany built a successful breakfast business by offering a complete buffet from day one, even when only one customer arrived.
“When we started, we wasted a lot of food,” Darby recalls the operator telling him.
The food waste created short-term pain, but offering a limited experience would have given early customers little reason to return. The team invested in the reputation it wanted before demand existed to support it.
“What’s your long-term objective?” Darby says. “How do you get through the pain?”
For Darby, sustainable growth sometimes requires accepting an immediate cost without expecting an immediate return.
“Lots of people talk about, ‘We care about the long term,’ but they just don’t act that way.”
“Always take the shitty mission“
Long-term growth requires leaders who are willing to step into uncertain situations. When young professionals ask for career advice, Darby tells them to recognize opportunities instead of waiting for the safest path forward.
“You’ve got to ride your luck,” Darby says. “There are people who will tell you they are unlucky, and there are people who will tell you they are lucky.”
Darby does not believe success is determined by luck alone.
“The truth is, there’s nobody who’s unlucky or lucky,” he says. “There are just people who get given an opportunity, and they seize it.”
His second piece of advice is more direct.
“You always take the shitty mission,” Darby says.
Those opportunities often appear when someone must choose between a comfortable promotion and a difficult role that nobody else wants. Darby faced that decision when the person running Marston’s Beer Company unexpectedly left for a competitor. The business generated significant revenue, but it was struggling and needed a new leader.
Darby was given one hour to decide whether he wanted the job. He called his father for advice.
“He said, ‘Alistair, why are you ringing me? You’re an idiot. Take the job. You’re going to learn so much,’” Darby recalls.
The decision gave Darby an opportunity to work with talented people, transform the business and gain experience as a board director. Because the company needed substantial change, he was also given the freedom to make decisions that would have been more difficult in a stable operation.
“I’ve carved out a career building learning and experience by always taking the shitty mission,” Darby says.
The safe job may offer the next promotion. The difficult mission can shape the rest of a career.
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