Meet The Disruptors: Steven Hesketh Of The Hospitality Hero On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

Wake up! What do people need to wake up to? What is the reality? What are you committed to? What are you passionate about? Can you communicate this clearly? I am passionate about giving hospitality management a wake up call, to become leaders, get savvy and save our industry. Let’s not sleep walk into a world where functioning on auto-pilot becomes the norm, relying on apps, technology and robots is a given and settling for a second class service is standard!

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Steven Hesketh, The Hospitality Hero.

Steven is passionately delivering 21st Century Hospitality. He is known as ‘The Hospitality Hero’, he’s a multi-Hotel Owner, Chair of Chester Hospitality Association and Vice-Chair of Liverpool Hospitality (Association), as well as a Committee Member for UK Hospitality (Northern Region). Steven is a man on a mission to revive the hospitality industry, with people, place and perception in mind. A big task…so what exactly is his plan? He is putting his heart, soul and cash into supporting an industry he’s been a part of for 30 years — one he’s willing to disrupt as he fears it won’t have a sustainable future if things don’t change — he is committing to being a leader of that change. Driven by his belief that evolution and history must unite to ensure the industry has a strong and sustainable future, Steven is facilitating industry events, collaborations and conversations, as well as developing training and offering consultancy support — to proactively encourage growth — growth of the industry as a whole, and growth of the people working within it, supporting and training hospitality leaders globally.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I was born in the UK, but when I was only 12 months old, our family moved 10,000 miles to the other side of the world to Adelaide, Australia, after my dad, who was an engineer in the UK, decided to change career and saw Australia as ‘the land of opportunity’. With my dad changing direction to instead become a salesman, and then starting his own business in telecoms, I became aware from a young age that you could create your own opportunities, and grew up with a very social upbringing, mingling with other Brits who had relocated over there.

As a family, my parents and I, plus my three siblings, then move to the Gold Coast when I was 13, this led to me embarking my career in the hospitality industry and at age of 15 when I got my first job in a resort, via my auntie, where I was cleaning windows in large holiday apartments.

Leaving school with very few qualifications, I had always struggled academically and believes I had (and still have) dyslexia, which went undetected as I navigated the education system.

Embracing the hospitality industry I built my career working in customer facing roles, hosting and welcoming guests, and organising social events and activities for them, as Activities Co-ordinator. This gave me so much knowledge and experience.

Five years after my first job in hospitality, I decided to returned to England with 3 of my mates and I found myself working in corporate hospitality in Chester — a far cry from the holiday destination hospitality of the BBQ welcome parties on the Gold Coast, but I loved the atmosphere and buzz of things like Chester Races that brought people together from far and wide, and was hooked.

This is where I met my now wife of 21 years. As I cut my teeth in the food and beverage industry, I went on to work across Industry for the next 17 years, working across Moat House Hotels, Macdonald Hotels, Jarvis Hotels, and BridgeStreet Serviced Apartments, undertaking many different roles and responsibilities.

I took on management training programmes to work up to the role of GM, whilst also experiencing hands on roles in the restaurants and bar areas too and I was also developed to upskill on the sales side of the industry, something I highly valued — until you go into that mode, you don’t really understand costs, you don’t really understand almost why you’re there. You just think you’ve just got to give the customers a good time, you don’t understand that it’s a business.

I have owned and run hotels for the past 30 years in the hospitality industry, I have also run/worked within restaurants, leisure clubs, student accommodation, serviced apartments and retail outlets.

Throughout my 30 years I have experienced highlights such as; winning the Caterer Acorn Award, highlighting the Industries up and coming stars under 30 alongside devastating lows of financial distress and struggles when first setting out as an Entrepreneur, but I have continued to evolve, and grow, embrace change, coming back stronger from every struggle — an approach I feels is necessary for the industry as a whole, for it to thrive.

I am passionate about maintaining and indeed enhancing the human connection as part of the hospitality experience, focusing on enhancing customer service with personal interaction and strong communication skills, passionately believing that tech and AI cannot replace true people skills.

I am looking to create a community of Hospitality Heroes — professionals who are ready and eager to fight for the industry to be its very best, and I have global initiatives lined up to help train, develop and celebrate these industry champions.

I am passionate about ensuring that we understand the impact Hospitality has in our towns and cities, both economically and culturally, and that we see the huge benefits it can bring — my rally cry is that “We must save Hospitality now — so Hospitality can save us!”

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Hospitality is one of the largest economically generated revenues for many countries across the globe. However, the pandemic has cast a serious and long lasting impact on the industry. The current state of play means that many restaurants and hotels around the world are simply putting ‘one step in front of the other’ as they try to survive. Many managers and staff have become monotonous, stuck on autopilot and have lost their mo-jo and we are seeing huge staff shortages and recruitment/retention difficulties — with huge generational gaps. Together with these issues hospitality venues are also having to navigate rising inflation, including; energy bills and food prices… and alongside this, there is a dampening in consumer confidence. All of this is leading to hospitality businesses and upper management feeling they are on the brink — stretched, pressed and stressed!….and we cannot go on like this. It is my mission to help educate, inspire and collaborate with leaders and entrepreneurs to enhance transformational change in themselves and their business, through experiential learning that helps them fall back in love with the art of hospitality and supports them to not just survive, but to thrive.

Hospitality is a delivery of an experience! It’s made with attention to detail, care and passion. I am led by my driving passion of creating first class hospitality experiences, which is underpins with my belief that attention to detail, care and passion are the core elements that create success. I believe these elements are often overlooked in today’s fast paced world, compared to more traditional times where gold star customer service was revered.

I am fiercely embracing and advocating traditional values in a world obsessed with tech.

Connecting people back to the heart of it is a core focus for me and in sharing my knowledge and experience and facilitating wider collaboration within the industry I hopes to re-ignite the passion of those currently working in the industry, as well as attracting new talent from the next generation.

Alongside my role as multiple Hotel owner, I am the Chair of Chester Hospitality Association and Vice-Chair of Liverpool Hospitality (Association), as well as a Committee Member for UK Hospitality (Northern Region)… ‘The Hospitality Hero’, is a new strand to my work, and my H.E.R.O values are focused around:

• Heralding hospitality as a dynamic industry and crucial to place making of towns and cities.
• Economics & Employment — championing the impact Hospitality brings to Regions, the UK and the wider world.
• Respect & Retention — Educating, Developing, Training and Supporting Employees and Operators.
• Opportunity — illustrating the changes this Industry provides through People, Place & Perception.

I am dedicated to disrupt and take on my role as a champion for the industry, improving hospitality service and culture both in the UK and Internationally, I am keen to share the good, the bad and the ugly of the industry, to facilitate progress and create more positive movements around customer service and customer experience. Committed to showing excellence and encouraging the strive for perfection, via short sharp, practical training, collaborative events and insightful mentorship, I am owning what I see as a responsibility to lead from the front.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

It wasn’t a funny mistake, but it taught me a lot… when I first became an entrepreneur, it wasn’t long afterwards that everything came crashing down. I lost 4 restaurants and our family home, which was used as a personal guarantee, as the business went bust. This was due to trusting in someone and not having a clear overview or regularly checking in with him with regards to what he was up to. I did manage to hold onto my three hotels, and within a couple of year I had rebuilt our life back up and bought our now family home outright in cash.

I was flambéed, burnt to a high level, but the flambéing process only added to my experience, giving me even more flavour!

I learned the hard way. We overstretched and we didn’t manage cash flow, and I took my eye off the numbers, believing someone else was in control of them. I was oblivious to it, because I’d long stopped looking at the bank account as I was too wrapped up in the operations and had trusted in the wrong people. That was a sharp learning curve.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I was confident and never afraid to ask questions, or to be bold… this is what stood out to my first UK GM, Mark Fuller, he believed in me and wasn’t put off by my questionning, he saw potential and put me on an in-house management program. He genuinely saw I was keen to please the customer and work with my team mates in a positive and fun manner.

I also had two other female GM’s in my career Carole Smith & Fiona Lockyer — both individuals pushed me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to network and grow my connections a huge valuable lesson — even today Fiona supports me with some of my grammar and submissions — these mentors have been priceless in respects to their affect on me.

I am also a huge family man and they help me so much on this rollercoaster journey. I met my wife through working in the industry and we’ve been married 21 years. We live in Chester and have 21yr old twin daughters, and a son who have all been actively involved in the family business. My sister is also part of the business too and a huge support.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

For me, positive disruption is defined by healthy observation, questionning, breaking the norms and shaking things up for the benefit of something — a positive force that can lead to innovation, growth, and positive change.

However, I agree, disruption is not always universally good, and whether it’s positive or not depends on various factors, including the industry and the context in which it occurs.

Disruption in the hospitality industry is needed, but it needs to be done for positive outcomes, so that it brings about the much-needed changes, innovation, and improvement. For example; we need to disrupt by fostering a culture of continuous improvement, addressing staff issues and shortages and bridging generational gaps…

Disruption can be negative when it leads to instability, alienates people or fails to address essential industry challenges. For example, sudden and poorly executed changes to established service models or drastic cost-cutting measures that compromise the quality of guest experiences can be detrimental.

In the current challenging landscape, it’s crucial to balance the need for disruption and transformation with the preservation of the core values and experiences that define hospitality.

Can you please share 5 ideas one needs to shake up their industry?

1. Wake up! What do people need to wake up to? What is the reality? What are you committed to? What are you passionate about? Can you communicate this clearly? I am passionate about giving hospitality management a wake up call, to become leaders, get savvy and save our industry. Let’s not sleep walk into a world where functioning on auto-pilot becomes the norm, relying on apps, technology and robots is a given and settling for a second class service is standard!
2. You need to have your finger on the pulse — you need to know what is trending and what is being talked about. Ensure you have Daily Online Information Drops — for me personally, what’s taken me from zero to hero, are my daily information drops about the industry. These are absolute gold dust for you, understanding and educating yourself on what’s going on in industry day in, day out. These usually just give a quick flavour of Industry, but vitally it gives you knowledge to network. From when you wake up, these give you a great picture of what’s going on in industry. Who are the movers and shakers? What are the current challenges? What are the current opportunities that you can tap into? What’s hot and what’s not?
3. Six Senses — Leaders need to take an active role in leading by example — mentoring, coaching and supporting teams, especially in instances where shake ups, improvements and change is needed. As leaders, we always need to be engaging all six senses, including the often-overlooked “Common Sense” — In hospitality, when leading a venue — the five senses are key, to be honest, I think we have six senses — Touch, Taste, Smell, See, Hear… plus the sixth — Common (Common Sense) and to lead well, all the six sensors must come into focus.
4. A community — you need to find like minded people who are with you on your mission. I am is looking to create a global community of Hospitality Heroes — professionals who are ready and eager to fight for the industry to be its very best. For me, one of the best tactics I’ve done in all my career is, I’ve got involved in the local associations and community projects. What are the local Associations, Chamber of Commerce, Business Groups, what are the wider Regional Associations… potentially… Where you should be seen? Where do you stand in your local community and where are your connections with local council and wider stakeholders? These will be crucial to how you grow and how you’re perceived as a business owner in your neck of the woods. If there isn’t any local groups or networks… Why not look to start one yourself? When I couldn’t find anything, I started my own hospitality association. And that was as simple as door knocking on my competitors and my neighbours and saying, We’ve got some challenges in our city — shall we face them together? It’s been priceless. It puts you on the map. It really does set you up as a leader and shows that you want to engage and collaborate with others for the better good of the region, the business and those businesses around you. You can also show up online and join online networks and forums. This is a key opportunity to show you as an individual leader, separate from your business. Follow and support as many in Industry as you can, join some of the groups and be active. Prove your Industry contribution, let people know you’re out and about, talk about your successes and celebration of all things Hospitality. Ask questions, ask for support…something that has been absolutely crucial for me is LinkedIn specifically. You can get yourself involved with so many hospitality groups and connect. And the great thing about them is they are global. That really gives you a full global picture.
5. Think about future generations — Finally, don’t underestimate the value in actually getting involved with the local schools, the local colleges, the local universities… Those kids are your future. They’re your future employees, and they’re potentially your future customers. Get out there and network with them too. We actually created our own in-house hotel traineeship where we took in eight students at a time and literally took them through the process of each department. So they learned the ins and outs of serving a cup of tea. They learned the ins and outs of answering the telephone at reception. They learned the ins and outs of how to operate in a kitchen… And at the end of that, out of those eight students, we’ve even taken some of them on as employees because they enjoyed themselves and learned through the process.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

I am about to launch my International Masterclass — the answer to hospitality success and savvy-ness! Empower people globally to go from manager to leader and become a future-proof savvy and smart ‘Hospitality Hero!’ You may ask, why HERO? Well, I feel the industry needs saving. So, I’m popping on my invisible cape and taking on the role as a champion for the industry, I’m dedicated to improving hospitality service and culture both in the UK and Internationally.

I do want to be a disruptor and a force for good — to change the track of something that is heading in the wrong direction.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

I’m a big Steve Barlett fan have both his books and regularly listen to Diary of a CEO Podcast — I love his ideas.

I have also undertaken Bob Proctor’s ‘The Thinking Into Results Program’ and also Tony Robbins ‘Unleash — both of these had immediate impact.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Well, given the fact that many of us in the hospitality industry have a tendency to be run around like headless chickens, or certainly that’s how it feels, we really don’t take the time to understand the difference between managing our operation and leading our operation. Many of us need to go from managing to leading.

A favourite quote of mine is from Karren Brady — Baroness Brady, CBE — who is a British business executive and television personality, seen on the UK version of The Apprentice.

Karren said: “We should never confuse leadership with management. Management is about setting a series of goals and managing the people to deliver them. It’s very very very important but it’s not leadership. Leadership is about vision and sometimes that’s a vision only you can see but your art as a leader is to persuade people to believe in your vision and help you deliver it.”

What a fantastic quote and I think that’s so true! When you’re opening your venue, when you are running your department… there is a significant difference between running the day-to-day and actually leading and getting your team to deliver this for you.

This is quote spoke volumes to me, it’s a reminder to regularly check in and take the time to focus on your product, team, venue, recruitment and business — to lead and develop, don’t just be a manager!

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I’d love to create a movement where the hospitality industry becomes an industry people love to work within and where the next generation aspire to work within too.

I am looking to create a huge global community of Hospitality Heroes — professionals who are ready and eager to fight for the industry to be its very best.

How can our readers follow you online?

Website: thehospitalityhero.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehospitalityhero

Twitter X: https://twitter.com/stevenhesketh

LinkedIn: thehospitalityhero

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!