What’s happening at MillerKnoll?

For most people, Andi Owen was not a household name before this week. But the CEO of MillerKnoll—one of America’s most legendary furniture companies—recently made news when a video of her answering a question during a recent company town hall surfaced on Twitter. In the video, which was pulled from a longer previously recorded 75-minute recorded conversation, Owen responds to a question of how teams can stay motivated during this challenging time for the furniture industry.



After extolling the benefits of providing good customer service, “treating each other well,” and being kind and respectful, she pivoted to a different flavor of advice:



“Don’t ask about, What are we going to do if we don’t get a bonus?” she said, after urging her staff to “be kind” and “lead by example.” “Get the damn $26 million. Spend your time and your effort thinking about the $26 million we need and not thinking about what you’re going to do if you don’t get a bonus. Alright? Can I get some commitment for that?” she said, emphatically waving a pointed index at the screen.



“I had an old boss who said to me one time, ‘You can visit pity city, but you can’t live there.’ So people, leave pity city. Let’s get it done,” she later added before wishing people a great day.



Though MillerKnoll hasn’t commented on bonus disbursements for this fiscal year (the company hasn’t returned our request for comment), Owen—whose own bonus remains unconfirmed—rubbed many people the wrong way with her insistence that the MillerKnoll workforce should focus more on helping the company’s bottom line than on their own compensation. (Fortune reports that in 2022, Owen received $3.9 million in “incentives-based compensation,” on top of a fixed salary of $1.1 million.)



In a comment to Vice’s Motherboard, MillerKnoll spokesperson Kris Marubio said, “Andi fiercely believes in this team and all we can accomplish together, and will not be dissuaded by a 90-second clip taken out of context and posted on social media.” Still, the whole affair is a classic case of CEO tone deafness, from a self-described “defender of equity and inclusion.”



As workers across the board are fighting to survive inflation, cutbacks, and an ever-looming economic downturn, Owen’s comments were insensitive, insulting, and a perfect example of how a CEO’s lack of compassion can hurt its workforce and ultimately tarnish a company’s reputation. “I’m never putting a Herman Miller chair in my renderings again!” one architect said on Twitter.



It’s unclear what the $26 million Owen was referring to represents, but the figure (and Owen’s behavior) suggests that the company is on shaky ground. MillerKnoll, which is the result of a merger in 2021 between two American furniture giants (Knoll and Herman Miller) has made some of the most iconic furniture in history, including the Eames Lounge Chair and the Aeron Chair. But office furniture sales (and Herman Miller’s profits) have been declining for years, well before the pandemic. Remote work threw the industry another curveball.



According to a Wood8 News, a local Michigan news publication where MillerKnoll is based, in 2022, MillerKnoll said it was focusing on online sales and closing underperforming stores, after orders declined by about 17% in the Americas. Other markets helped buffer that loss, and the company’s net sales in the first quarter of 2023 were up 12.3% compared to last year. Steelcase, another office furniture-maker giant, also reported a 20% drop in orders and $20 million in budget cuts.



Owen has had a long career in retail, having served as the executive vice president of GAP’s global outfit division and later as the global president of Banana Republic. She took over as CEO of Herman Miller in 2018. After Herman Miller purchased Knoll in 2021, Knoll’s then CEO stepped down, making Owen the leader of the new furniture company.



Now, Owen has found herself in a glaring spotlight as she attempts to steer the business through economic turbulence, a struggling office furniture market, and a continuing supply chain crisis. This misstep, undoubtedly, just made that already daunting task a lot harder to accomplish.