Ryan Anderson: Bürolandschaft, Neighborhoods, Design | Work 20XX #03

The impact of design can not be overstated. Look no further than the high gloss images on Times Square video boards, the minimalist chic at Apple Stores, to the software-first acceleration experience in a Tesla Plaid.

Herman Miller has been designing work environments since 1942, and if you were working in a Silicon Valley office in the late 1990s when I entered tech, you were probably sitting in one of the iconic Herman Miller Aeron Chairs, a fixture up and down 101. Mention the name Herman Miller, and everyone responds with something different, be it the Eames lounge or the Eames molded chair.

In this episode of Work 20XX, we explore the world of design, real estate, and facilities through the eyes of long-time industry veteran Ryan Anderson , Vice President, Global Research & Insights, MillerKnoll . No surprise, design, real estate, and facilities professionals are refreshing their prioritization, from a cost center utilization and efficiency point of view to a “seat-at-the-table” partner of the business, asking, how can we better deploy our assets and knowledge to increase human productivity, engagement, innovation, & retention, with a more human-centric, activity-based approach.

Ryan poses the critical question: How can we use our portfolio of resources (real estate, facilities, interior design, remote support, etc.) to facilitate our people to create the best work of their careers? How do we reduce inhibitors, smooth roadblocks, and enable accelerants?

Better work performance is about more than output, it's about talent engagement, innovation, and retention. It’s hard to attract solid talent. Harder yet to retain the top people. They want to be challenged, they want to make a difference, they want to know their work is tied to a bigger cause. They want to be taught. They don't want to be task micro-managed or have a time clock connected to their webcam or keyboard.

Good news, Ryan and his teams have been studying and designing, deploying and documenting the way work gets done at the office, since the beginning of the office, at least in the computer-connected offices we've become accustomed to for the last sixty-plus years.

The tethered-PC infrastructure of the last several decades had the unfortunate unintended consequence of destroying the easy execution of 'activity-based spaces' as movable walls and furniture originally designed to be flexible, and enable dynamic change of the space based on need, became semi-permanent power, and ethernet cables ways. The people got put in at the end.

Wireless infrastructure is catching up to the vision with advances in mobile and Wi-Fi technologies, powerful handsets, and the proliferation of the cloud as an application delivery method. No department wants to be a cost center, and by shifting the focus from spreadsheet-centric optimization and utilization to human productivity, creativity, engagement, innovation, satisfaction, retention, real estate, and facilities are stepping up in collaboration with HR and IT. “Traditional” office spaces, where everyone got the same ‘here’s your computer here’s your chair’ regardless of function, don't cut it anymore. A single space built to accommodate all can’t be optimal for the individual, doing all types of work, in all kinds of conditions.

Historically, organizations, over-indexed on private desks, cubicles, and private offices, while under-indexing meeting spaces, and collaboration spaces, focus-work spaces, even as private desk utilization rates continue to drop and even before the pandemic. In fact, offices should invest in spaces and techniques that support these activities, including community socialization, team collaboration, and individual focus work.

In this far-ranging conversation, Ryan shares his deep data-based expertise and best practices on putting humans first and at the center of it all. The pandemic showed work could get done outside the office, and on closer inspection of workspaces, there are also environmental improvements to be made. Most importantly, the promise of activity-based spaces and concepts like ‘neighborhoods,’ and a more agile and flexible mindset will make the spaces and places of the future much more attractive and productive than rows of desks, tables, and cubes of cabled computers.

Without further delay, my conversation with Ryan Anderson.

If you prefer to jump to the full-length video interview, Watch Here . If you prefer to listen, available on Apple Podcasts , Audible Books on Tape , iHeart Radio , Alexa, Spotify , and where ever you enjoy your podcasts. Episode transcript and show notes .

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Select Quotes and Clips

To set some context, what is MillerKnoll, and how does it fit with Herman Miller and Knoll

?MillerKnoll as a family of brands who are involved in the creation of great spaces. It's furniture, textiles, tools, support, heavy focus on modern design. We want to make sure the spaces we help to create serve people well - Ryan Anderson

Herman Miller's relationship with designing space at the intersection of people and technology goes back to the 'mother of all demos.'

We're carrying on a tradition, In fact when Stanford showed the first personal computer in 1968, Herman Miller designed the environment. The goal has always been to try to understand who we serve and what are they doing - Ryan Anderson

The relationship between Bürolandschaft, tethered cubicles, and the promise of wireless activity-based flexibility

Bürolandschaft 'office landscape' ... an office should have a variety of spaces for different things. The whole idea was that people would move throughout these spaces, throughout the course of their dayand they would experience a variety of cool spaces to support whatever they were doin. What happened ... the furniture became a pathway for cables. People went in whereever the chairs happend to be - Ryan Anderson

The difference between space and place

Space is an empty box, typically ... A good Place and Places strengthen the community of people that are within them, it should take on the character and the attributes of the people ... and should evolve and move over time with the people - Ryan Anderson

Flexibility in time is more important than flexibility in place

You're honing in on the right question, which is flexibility. The fact that you put those two together, flexible working and DE&I show that you're beyond where most organizations are, I believe that's what they'll get - Ryan Anderson

You know what you're supposed to do, just not sure how. Here's a very important concept, group-defined norms around 'neighborhoods', to significantly increase the likelihood that I'll get to engage with the people that matter when I go into the office. Think activity-based. According to MillerKnoll's research, these three activities better achieved outside the home include 1) Culture Building / Team building 2) Heavy Collaborative work, and 3) Heads down focus work (source content link below).

I've experienced this in Australia, neighborhood based - we're going to give this team a mix of spaces - they know where their people are so that if they go into the office, they know where to find their peeps - Ryan Anderson

At the end of the day, it's about people, talent, and increasingly human resources, engagement, and retention priority. Don't forget the basics. Maslow. Safety, belonging, and trust are foundational to culture, and community along with coffee and clean air.

Offices are on-demand assets - What does it look like to make sure they're healthy and desirable? - It sounds soft and squishy to some people, it's about fostering a sense of community, people can be their whole selves there, that the space is designed to be inclusive. ... I've never seen stronger interest in this because the office has competition, they need to be designed well - Ryan Anderson

We should do a gut check on the spaces we inhabit

Think of workspaces as a product, employees are our customers ... it's to boost organizational outcomes ... do it right, employees stick around longer, they're more engaged, more productive ... Is the space in service to the people, and is it serving them well? - Ryan Anderson

Is the space in service to the people and is it serving them well? If not, we need to make the changes.

The clips are a small taste of this fantastic, and far-reaching conversation.

Thanks again Ryan, so fun to see the world through your eyes.

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Links and References

Ryan Anderson , VP Global Insights and Research, MillerKnox

https://news.hermanmiller.com/Ryan-Anderson ?

https://www.workdesign.com/author/ryan-anderson/

MillerKnoll

https://www.millerknoll.com/ ?

HermanMiller - The Future of Work - Resources Website

HermanMiller - The Future of Work - The Report ?

HermanMiller - Looking forward - Resources Website

HermanMiller - Looking Forward: Conversations about the Future of Work, by Herman Miller, hosted by Ryan Anderson, A Podcast??

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/looking-forward-conversations-about-the-future-of-work/id1583041788 ?

A few of Ryan’s Guest Appearances on other shows

Six Feet in the Six 3 10 Ryan Anderson, Herman Miller , Business Interiors Ontario, Inc. Oct 2021?

Is Asych communication the future of work? Ryan Anderson, Herman Miller , Open Sourced Workplace , Dec 2020

MIPIM PropTech New York: Ryan Anderson, Herman Miller , PlaceTech , Nov 2019

?Ryan Anderson, VP of Global Research & Insights at Herman Miller , The Remote Show from the Folks at We Work Remotely

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Disclaimer and Disclosure

This Episode of Work 20XX with Jeff Frick was brought to you by?Webex ?by?Cisco ?as part of the?Webex Ahead?program. For more information and leaders on Work, and the future of work, please visit?www.WebexAhead.Webex.com

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