1) Ted Devine, CEO Insureon

Inside the LaSalle Atrium Building in downtown Chicago, a short walk from Lake Michigan, Insureon CEO Ted Devine has his desk arranged in one corner of the company's open-plan office space. The CFO is adjacent. The head of marketing sits just 15 feet away, and the head of sales is nearby. There are no offices--not even cubicle dividers. In fact, from where Devine sits, he can look out on all 20 of his employees at company headquarters.

Devine came to Insureon in 2011 from Aon Risk Services, where, as president, he worked in a more traditional setting, one befitting the guy in charge of an operation with 28,000 employees and $5 billion in annual revenue. But it drove him crazy, Devine says, to sit in his resplendent office and see people lining up in the hallway outside, as if waiting to be granted an audience with the pope. So for Devine, the open floor plan he instituted at Insureon conveys a message that extends far beyond any interior design aesthetic. It goes to the heart of the company's management style and workplace culture. It symbolizes an openness of spirit and Devine's availability to everyone in the company, no matter their station--and no waiting required.

"For me it says a couple things about leadership," he says. "One is: No walls, no barriers, no hierarchy. Everybody can talk to everybody. Everybody can participate in a decision. We work together, and that's very important in leadership."

In his eagerness to tear down the literal and figurative walls that have divided the workplace classes for generations, Devine is not alone. More businesses, especially those that employ large numbers of young workers, have sought to reshape their internal dynamics, ditching their long-standing, top-down, my-way-or-the-highway management structure in favor of a management structure that encourages collaboration.

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