Herman Miller's Creative Network

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Vivo is a recent frame-and-tile office system by Herman Miller.

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Cite an example of a workplace problem you are trying to address.

Right now we see a growing need for temporal places that aren't as permanent as an office nor just a meeting space, but something in between. A question we ask ourselves is what kind of seating is best suited for such a temporal place? If you begin by trying to solve the problem, you get a different outcome than saying, 'We need to go do a chair that's $200.'

Herman Miller's product offerings go beyond office furniture, don't they?

Herman Miller has had several periods of revival or renewal where we have changed our focus. We don't define ourselves as an office furniture company or even a furniture company. Our boundary is around people and human performance. It's around habitat and wherever we can affect the performance of human beings in their habitats. Problem-solving design is at the core of what Herman Miller is, and that can be applied to a broader field and evolve over time. Clearly some habitats have not been primary to us in the recent past, but are logical and natural steps. We have historical grounding in the home, so we can play off of that. Educational institutions have a lot of connectivity and, in many ways, have needs that are similar to the office and the home. And we've had interest in the healing area for many years. Those became the jumping-off point for us.

We also have a group called the Herman Miller Creative Office working on things that you can't define by environment or habitat type. They're clearly not furniture either. The most recent example is Convia, a modular, programmable sub-building infrastructure system for electrical and data that makes buildings more adaptable and changeable by the user. We believe it has profound implications for the design and management of buildings, across multiple categories of use.

How has Herman Miller managed to stay at the forefront of introducing new materials, from Eames' molded plywood to the fabric on the Aeron chair?

Trying to solve problems in a new way often leads us to new materials. One advantage we have as a company is that we're not very vertically integrated from a manufacturing standpoint. If we were, it would be difficult to convince ourselves to change material types. We see ourselves more as an integrator than a manufacturer. We're able to do material explorations somewhat freely and give designers a fairly free hand to bring us new ideas.

You have a strong financial background. How did you learn about design?

It's almost impossible to be here for 18 years and not learn something about design. I don't consider myself knowledgeable about how to design, but I have become a student of design. I have had the benefit of great teachers at Herman Miller, both in our creative network and in our own management team and Board of Directors. I have the good fortune of working with Gary Miller and Don Goeman who have been involved in the design and innovation processes at Herman Miller for 25 to 30 years. Spending time with those folks and being willing to listen to them and have them say, 'Let me tell you why we're approaching it this way' has been a great benefit. More recently I've gotten to spend more time with our creative network.

When I was transitioning from Chief Operating Officer to CEO, I used to sit in on every design review launch team meeting. I spent a lot of time listening to the details of what was going on, not as the boss critiquing their work, but as an observer trying to understand where it was going. Even today, when one of our designers is in town, Don Goeman checks to see if I have an hour or two to meet. It's not about spending time to approve anything; sometimes it's to take me through the latest model and hear what they're thinking.

You recently went to China to explore marketing opportunities and took a team of designers with you. That's rather unusual.

We spent almost three weeks in China doing research into what our entry strategy should be. Our group included Don Goeman and three members of our creative network—Eric Chan of Ecco Design in New York, Bill Stumpf of Stumpf/Weber, and Burkhard Schmitz from Studio 7.5 in Berlin. About a third of our trip was cultural immersion, visiting museums, the homes of local people, touring emerging and old cities.