A Design for Living

One bitterly cold Saturday this past winter, he confides, he found himself at home with no commitments, no company. "A lot of people are hands-off on me now, because they don't want to bother me," he says. "Nobody dropped by. I realized I either have to get used to this privacy, or I have to make plans if I don't want to be stuck. It's a funny in-between time for me."

The loss of mobility has also been difficult for Graves to accept. He rails at the size of his wheelchair, which maneuvers like a bulky SUV and, he feels, sticks out. "It makes you such a visual guinea pig, to be in a big thing like this," he says. He is on a quest to find a smaller version. When asked if there's something he'd still really like to do, the answer is simple: He'd like to walk.

"I feel like I've paid my dues, I've done a year," Graves says quietly. "I know what it's like. Now let me back." He pauses, and his voice gets softer, "I looked up the other morning and said, 'If He would give me just 15 minutes a day, a half an hour a week, a day a month.' But you have to let go."

The Simple Life

The party at the Chelsea Art Museum looks like a typical downtown fashion-crowd affair. The bar is teeming with Cosmo-swilling partygoers and a CBS-TV crew roams the room with lights and a boom. Along the walls, arrayed on pedestals like precious objects from a lost civilization, are the latest products from the Michael Graves Design Group's spring collection for Target: a cocktail shaker with a green olivelike rubber stopper, a Yahtzee game, a mantel clock. Tables and chairs are set in the corner, ranged around board games, including a Monopoly set with Gravesian-themed game pieces: a toaster, a clock, a blender, a teakettle, and hotels that look suspiciously like a Graves-designed foreign ministry in the Hague.

Graves, resplendent in a tweed jacket and blue shirt, happily surveys the scene from his wheelchair, while the stereo blasts, "Give Me the Simple Life."

The event is a combination party, celebrating both the publication of Phil Patton's book, Michael Graves Designs the Art of the Everyday Object (Melcher Media, 2004), and the fifth anniversary of Graves's partnership with Target. John Remington, a Target vice president, hushes the crowd and raises a glass of champagne for a toast to the collaboration: "To an incredible icon of architecture and design -- and a really good friend."

Then Graves takes the mike and, in a voice that begins a little hoarse then becomes increasingly strong, speaks for five minutes about the importance of design. For a moment, the events of the past year fall away, and Graves is once again in command, the center of his design universe, the master of all he surveys. It feels good. The applause ends, the music starts back up, and Graves drums a happy beat on a copy of the book in his lap.

I think back to our conversation in Princeton. On that afternoon, as Graves, visibly exhausted, prepared to go back to his house, I asked what message he would want people to know, based on his own experience with a disability.

He looked at me then with a mixture of frustration and resignation. "There should be no downtime," he said. "Sitting in front of the tube isn't in the cards anymore. You've got to be doing something. That's how I would plan my life if I got my legs back. I'd make use of every f---ing minute." Then he rolled away.

Fast Take: Out of Commission: Guiding a Company When the Leader Is Sidelined

1. Come to a consensus about how the crisis will be handled and communicated, internally and externally.
2. Communicate as quickly as possible with your staff to maintain morale. Give them honest, coherent messages (and updates) and let them know what they can tell others.
3. Speak personally with clients and professional colleagues. Convey how the firm is handling their projects, whether or not that has changed.
4. If relevant, keep the public informed. Provide forthright and consistent updates, including information about the sidelined leader and how the firm is continuing to conduct its business.
5. Keep the leader in the loop. If illness is the cause of the crisis, balance ongoing productive involvement in the practice with the understanding that health is the number-one priority.
6. Manage expectations going forward, both inside and outside the firm. Explain new policies, if any, in the conduct of your practice.

Linda Tischler is a Fast Company senior writer.