On the occasion of Manfred Bene's 70th birthday and 50th business anniversary, Nicole Colisch and Dizaree Schellerer were interviewed.
Manfred Bene was born in 1941 in Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Lower Austria. Having studied woodworking and production in Hallstatt and Mödling, in 1961 he started working for his parents' company as an operator. In 1970 he became Director of Bene AG and in 2004 Chairman of the Board. Since 2006 Manfred Bene has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bene AG. Over the years, he has led the company to success in the international market, Bene furniture is popular in both architectural and design circles. In collaboration with leading architects and designers from around the world, Bene develops new office environments and transforms an office into a living space.
Mr. Bene, let's pretend that you need to re-create your own office. What will it be like? The same as the present one, that is, a separate room, or would you still prefer an open space?
Basically, I like a variety of layouts. In the case of Bene's headquarters, there is not much room for imagination: the office building is like a ship, where the captain's cabin is reserved for me. Besides, there is only one solid wall in my office; the remaining 80% is occupied by windows, so there is nowhere to swing too much.
Do you have a favorite piece of furniture in your office?
Perhaps a negotiating table. When I first took this office (23 years ago), I had a solid writing desk, and a small side table to it. The conference table was at the other end of the room.
But since I spend two-thirds of my life talking with people, I realized that this is extremely impractical. Every time I had to get up, take everything I needed from the desk, go to the meeting room and sit down again. Then I came up with a square table for myself, which can simultaneously serve as a writing and meeting room. In 1988 there were no such tables yet.
I threw out all the old furniture and put this table in its place. I myself sit on one side, this is my workplace, and six more people fit freely on the other three sides. Size is very important: the table can accommodate six people, but it is not as huge as ordinary meeting tables, so people can easily stretch papers to each other, show pictures and communicate normally. Perhaps this is the most important innovation in my personal account, and today most of the director's desks we manufacture are 1.6 x 1.6 m rather than 2.5 x 1 m.
Tell me, does your study somehow characterize you? And do you want him to characterize you?
Well, real chaos often reigns in my office …
When I receive letters, notes, brochures, and so on, I gradually lay them out and end up surrounding myself with stacks of papers.
My workplace is literally packed with papers: competitor catalogs or gifts from our Japanese partner. Nearby is a side table, on which, again, a heap of papers, and behind it are several old briefcases, a wooden horse and similar personal items. My office is neither exemplary nor typical. In general, he characterizes me as a person far from administrative affairs.
It turns out that the administrative routine is not your strong point. What do you like best about your job?
My favorite pastime has always been to create a new product or develop it with designers and then sell. Of course, when I first started out, I did pretty much everything from leadership to accounting and preparatory work. My motto and Bene's motto is Passion and Imagination. Product development has always been my passion. And, of course, I love talking to my sales managers, clients and architects.
What does your typical working day look like?
Product development isn't just design work. Here you always have to observe a fine line: creating a product, adjusting it to the modern market and at the same time offering a little more than the market is able to offer. This "a little more" and makes the thing cult. Therefore, we assembled our own sales team early on. The potential client will understand my concept only if I demonstrate it in an accessible way. This means that we must be as open as possible with the buyer, as honest as possible about what we create and sell.
For me, this is all a development process. When I work on a product, several schemes are spinning in my head at once: costs, materials, production, competitiveness, customer appeal. Does the product seem overly contrived and futuristic, or is it a new step into the future? Is he too ahead of his time, will the market accept him, will buyers understand?
Accordingly, image is very important for Bene. The visibility and strength of the brand gives confidence to our sellers and customers. Typically, clients are not professional interior designers. Buying furniture, they find themselves in unknown territory. Often they don't even know what they want. Our employees help them draw a "picture", visualize the future office.
I often wonder what you think about when you sit in your office and constantly see vans leaving the factory with the company logo on the side, that is, with your last name.
I have a slightly different point of view on this than you might think. First, I don't sit at the window all day. Secondly, it’s pure coincidence that my last name coincided with the name of the company. I have never considered myself its owner, but rather a manager, a manager. Although I, of course, realize that the last word will be mine, but it never comes to that. I have always tried to work as a team. And the fact that the name of the company and my surname coincided is just another notion of our marketers.
Do you have a study at home?
Not. I was very lucky: it was four minutes to walk from my house to the office.
Do you still go to work every day?
Often. I like it. Although I do not go into small details and do not control every step of my subordinates, in the company I am something of a cultural landmark. I make sure that the craving for creativity does not fade away in the employees, I am responsible for "passion and imagination." Most of our employees think like this: "We are special and we do something special."
In your lifetime, you have seen many offices. Has any office shook you to the core?
Well, I have both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Sometime in the 70s, in Holland, I visited the administrative building of the insurance company Centraal Beheer, designed by the architect Hermann Hertzberger. It is an office building for 2,000 employees, clearly zoned and completely open. No doors, no walls! Then it seemed to me a manifestation of unprecedented freedom of thought, freedom of relations between people.
The highlight of the building was that management allowed employees to decorate their workplaces however they please. In the women's departments everything was lush, flowery, there were a lot of indoor plants, someone even hung a cage with a canary. In the departments where the men worked, everything remained exactly the same as it was a minute before the doors were opened.
The ability to change the world around was highly developed in women and almost absent in men. It was a kind of revelation for me. This is why I have always wanted a woman on the Board of Directors, but this is easier said than done.
What is the most important tool in your job?
Since I'm not a born administrator, I have to discipline myself a lot. My most important tool is my daily to-do list. I write down all the cases in it and cross it out as it is done. If I don't meet the deadlines, I set myself new ones. This is a very simple procedure, but at the same time it is extremely important: without it I would have forgotten everything. Of course, this is not a "tool" in the literal sense of the word. Let's call it the “handy tool,” old-fashioned and analog. You open the diary to the desired page and immediately see where you can carve out an hour or two for the next task - it's very convenient! Modern people have to move the mouse, click there, click here, open a bunch of programs …
Are there any rituals in your job?
The only ritual in my work activity is rooted in the past, it is already 30 years old. I don’t know why it happened, but one day someone decided that in the morning I should definitely have a cup of coffee. Since then, every morning, exactly seven minutes after I arrived at the office, they bring me a double espresso and a glass of cold water. It's almost a ceremony.
Always double?
Yes, always. I allow myself such a little luxury. I don’t remember any other rituals.
Thank you for the interview!
