When it comes to office d & #233;cor, Al Mann, the CEO of Sylmar-based MiniMed Inc., isn’t into frills.
There’s no hardwood paneling, antique furniture or original paintings. The wall coverings consist of white paint, decorated with a few photos and awards. The furniture: a simple desk, a couple of chairs and a conference table.
Looking at the 15-by-16-foot space he occupies, most people would never guess it was the office of a man who became a billionaire by inventing a revolutionary insulin pump to treat diabetics.
“We’re not in the real estate business or the decorating business. Fancy offices or airplanes are not our way of life,” said Mann, 74. “We’re trying to cure people of diabetes.”
When MiniMed moves to its new $85 million campus in Northridge this fall, Mann will get slightly more space but it will remain unadorned. “There’ll be more room to pile my stacks of paper,” he laughed.
Call them frugal, call them gauche, but just don’t call them snobs. L.A. has a cadre of top executives who forsake the creature comforts the fine works of art, marble floors, built-in mini-bars, executive restrooms with gold-plated faucets in favor of more Spartan surroundings.
Sending a message
These are executives who like their personal offices to be comfortable, more like a loafer than a fancy, stiff dress shoe. Others believe keeping it simple sends an important message to employees and shareholders about the chief executive’s attitude toward waste, and his or her willingness to be available to the rank and file.
“People who surround themselves with opulence in the office are making a statement, inadvertently, that they’re not approachable, that the employees don’t have access to them,” said Erica Steenstra, an interior designer and project manager with HLW International LLP. “Design really does reflect the culture of the company and how they do business, internally and externally.”
That idea has apparently taken hold for Bill Gross, the chairman and chief executive of Idealab, a Pasadena-based incubator for Internet companies. Gross’ net worth has been estimated at $1.6 billion, yet his office consists of a Plexiglas box located in the middle of the company’s Old Pasadena headquarters.
Inside Gross’ small office is a simple desk, photos and a few awards. Probably the only frill is a high-fidelity stereo system. That may be because Gross helped put himself through college by manufacturing speakers and has maintained his love of a quality sound system.
Teresa Birdwell, Idealab’s vice president of corporate communication, said Gross chose to place his office in the middle of the room because he wants to make himself available to the companies being incubated. Gross doesn’t scrimp when it comes to things needed to run the business, be it computers or teleconferencing equipment, but she conceded he doesn’t believe in spending money on frills.
“You’ll find no walnut paneling here,” Birdwell said.
Charles Conn, CEO of Ticketmaster Online-City Search, can do Gross one better. Conn doesn’t even have an office. His desk a door stretched over two filing cabinets sits in the middle of the room.
“Instead of having offices around windows for the big shots while everyone else sits in the dark in the middle of the room, we have it set up the other way around,” Conn said. The chief executive likes the open-office format because the employees feel free to talk to him and share ideas.
When he was a partner at the consulting firm of McKinsey & Co., Conn found that the companies with the most serious problems were those in which the executives closeted themselves away in fancy offices. The worst had receptionists who acted as guards to keep employees away. “There are no executive perks here. We all ride coach class and no one gets special treatment,” he said.
Walt Boyle, a vice president, said the company is preparing to make its first bow toward interior design by buying desks, which will be modernistic, delta-wing-shaped models.
Despite the new furniture, the company will keep its open-office format. “If you don’t have a door between junior and senior people, there’s a good chance the communication flow will stay open,” Boyle said.
No-frills dot-com executives
Another company where less is more is Santa Monica-based eCompanies LLC, another Internet incubator.
Co-founders Sky Dayton and Jake Winebaum do business from rudimentary offices. Each has an L-shaped desk press board covered in maple veneer with laptop computers. Their walls are covered in white vinyl so they can use markers to illustrate their thoughts during meetings.
The only frills for Winebaum, the former head of Walt Disney Co.’s Buena Vista Internet Group, are a couple of leather chairs for meetings, while Dayton, the founder of Internet service provider EarthLink Network Inc., has a TV.
“We’re all here to work,” said company spokesman Christian Gunning. “We just feel the streamlined conditions are far more beneficial than burning money on unnecessary accoutrements.”
Steenstra, with HLW, said a lot of companies are going for the no-frills approach and open-office format as they flatten out their corporate structures. But while it may be good strategy for an executive to keep his or her office simple and open, it’s important for companies not to go to extremes.
“When a person is greeting prospective employees, clients, or potential partners, they need a space that’s respectful of people,” Steenstra said.
One way around the problem is to put some money into the conference room, which can be used to meet with clients and interview job candidates. Something as simple as adding a coffee station with china dishes can class up the space.
“The conference room can be more about the hospitality end of what a company does,” said Steenstra. “The office can still be comfortable.”
