At CleanAir, we don't burden creativity with conventional hierarchy. Instead of a pyramid of bosses and managers, we have created a flatter organization built around teams. We strive to eliminate chains of command, pre-determined channels of communication, closed doors and secrets.

Our teams organize around opportunities and leaders emerge. Each operational team must have a Business Leader (sometimes called entrepreneurial leader), a Technical Leader and a Sales Leader (sometimes called business development leader). This three-legged stool approach has worked well for CleanAir for decades.

Other leaders emerge as well: team safety, team recruiting, team innovation, team partnershipping, and more. These leadership roles are not full-time jobs, rather they are championed by operational team members in addition to their normal roles.

We have teams and team members, not departments and employees. We communicate directly with each other and are accountable to fellow members of our team and all the other teams throughout the organization. While we do not have bosses or managers, we do manage projects and manage systems, we do not manage people.

We modeled parts of our culture on W. L. Gore & Associates concepts.