Five years ago, United Business Media, which owns a number of trade publications and hosts trade shows, reorganized itself as part of a plan to improve the online presence of its properties. The 100-year-old company broke its three divisions into a federation of 15 semiautonomous businesses, each catering to a specialized audience from jewelry makers to the aviation industry. UBM says the move helped it increase the percentage of its revenue that comes from online advertising rather than print, but it also created a new problem. The company had dismantled the hierarchical structure that had facilitated communication among 6,000 employees around the world.

"In our previous organization structure, what happened was that if there was a piece of know-how that needed to be carried outside of a division, it needed to travel up before it could get out," says Jennifer Duvalier, UBM's director of people and culture. That wouldn't work now that the company was "as flat as it was geographically diverse," she adds.