"Someone has to believe the right space can coax out something decent from people." That's most of what I believe about work in one sentence. Design the environment well & people surprise you. Design it thoughtlessly & no amount of posters or certifications will save you. It's at titanauts.com.

Life in April 2026

I have the first pages from my layout guy and am thrilled with what Social Life of Small Enclosed Spaces is shaping up to be. Yes, I've been quiet on Bluesky... see what I've been working on here.. titanauts.com

AI, layoffs, and increasing confusion about where and how people work is creating a new type of worker: a Newpreneur. No one is prepared for this. And you are likely one right now or will be so in the next 24 months. View the full article here: humanework.substack.com/p/whether-yo...

The activities we've come up with for the Kanban Evolved workshops are so fun, the conversations so deep. I love my job. You haven't done kanban for real before you've addressed this stuff. lu.ma/modus?k=c

luma is a wonderful app that does just what it is supposed to do and ... almost nothing else. lu.ma/t495qtrj

If you are a leader or aspiring there are common mistakes we all make in the interest of decisiveness or getting things done quickly that have costly implications. In our Toxic Waste and Overload classes, we create strategies to create healthy work and constructively respond when things aren't good.

You and I operate with our own internally flawed models, just like AI is a flawed model. The difference is we’ve had a lifetime of understanding or at least coping with our own flaws. Our use of AI? We take it’s correctness for granted and laugh off the errors…to our shared detriment.

When we create space for people to effortlessly achieve their goals, when we create features that help people get over common hurdles, and when we do these things is a way that lets people build even better worlds inside what we’ve done… then we are leaders. humanework.substack.com/p/on-the-ech...

Your most used spaces have connection. Your favorite people have connection. Your favorite food, movies, scents, books… As humans we connect and we get work done. We connect and we create. We connect and we relax. We connect.

When we are with people. Family, co-workers, people on airplanes, … people… we impact each other. In little ways, in large ways. We build, very quickly actually, shared languages. We measure temperament, current state, humor, shared observations. And then we impact and are impacted.

We are all silos from time to time. This doesn't mean we are focused team members getting our individual work done, it means we are stuck, alone, frustrated, and underinformed. And we say, Oh Damn, I'm a Silo. See the results of an awesome conversation here: humanework.substack.com/p/oh-damn-im...

We’ve been working with people and their workload, for a long time, and with a lot of people. A…lot. Talking about how we work, how we think, how we solve problems, how we undo the stress.

Seriously, visualizing your work, creating a team space where we can get real work done (and talk about talking about it less), and keeping everyone moving is easier than we think. #lean #leanthinking #personalkanban #kanban #obeya #visualmanagement #productivity

Telling people to calm down or not be afraid is not effective. This is a short piece on how to create a system that reduces worry, fear, and doubt. At work, at home, at anywhere. humanework.substack.com/p/saying-no-...

Neurodiversity is not a problem to solve, it is an asset to promote. There is a tendency in all people to focus on our individual work, for the neurodiverse this can be even more pronounced. humanework.substack.com/p/perfection... #neurodiversity #kanban #personalkanban #obeya

The crazy thing about writing is that you put something out there and get some feedback. Then it dies down over time, but the books still sell. Maybe a little, maybe nicely.

Your office hero is a wonderful, talented, necessary single point of failure on the fast track for burnout. They are the most valuable bottleneck you have. They love being that and they hate it. Here's how to fix it so everyone wins. humanework.substack.com/p/the-heros-...

Drag is anything that stops you from getting the right work done at the right time. Overload, toxicity, bottlenecks, policies, personalities ... can combine to interrupt your flow.

Fogcasting: deliberately building uncertainty into people's daily lives. Misinformation, misdirection, reassignment, defunding, changing deadlines, undermining success, taking credit for the work of others... the list is lengthy. humanework.substack.com/p/is-your-bo...

Other people are counting on you. Maybe too many, but as fate would have it, that is how many people are counting on you. And you are counting on them. humanework.substack.com/p/visualize-...

Stress kills everything. From the first pages of Personal Kanban to literally everything Tonianne & I have done since, we've been worried (literally awake at night worried, ironic, I know.) about people we know & people in general and how they deal with life. humanework.substack.com/p/how-to-bui...

At work, we are dumped into cubicles, even if they look like our home. We are separated, given tasks, and then called a team. We do this to ourselves. We do this all the time. It's a human thing.

This post is wrong, but it is useful. From here on out, every class I teach will quote George Box at the beginning and then once an hour every hour thereafter. Stop saying that models are wrong or don't work. Be useful and talk about how we can apply them without becoming beholden to them.

Creating Islands of Stability Right now is tough. Distressing. Toxic. We can work through this, but we need each other and we need to communicate. Deeply. Intentionally. Practically. This is for real. Please like, please respond. Because ... I need it too. open.substack.com/pub/humanewo...

Martyr syndrome is a nasty beast. It comes up in personal overload, our self-image, burnout, and office toxicity. humanework.substack.com/p/martyr-syn...

On Monday I’ll release a long form video on overload with strategies based on understanding how we work as individuals and how, when, and why we collaborate with other people. Much of our overload comes from poor communication. Subscribe to Humane Work to see it. substack.com/@jimbenson50...

When Karl Scotland and I teach strategy classes, we've noticed that the start of any strategy (what do you want to be) is the hardest to create. There's an infinite number of options for thatn. Answering it alone is hard enough. How do we answer it as a group? humanework.substack.com/p/why-we-can...

In Part Two of the Too Many Metrics series, we looks at the human toll of overmeasurement. humanework.substack.com/p/every-metr...

Huge impact on my work and my early adulthood. A pioneering voice of honesty and directness. Unapologetically human. I am grateful for Edmund White. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

It seems pretty clear that the RFK report with made up citations was AI generated. I have tried to use LLMs for research many times and found that even the best of them simply make up research and attribute it to real researchers making it very hard to figure out if it is real or not. 1/2

On July 17, Karl Scotland and I will do a one-time workshop on creating your True North to build your strategy and identity. True North is the first step for an X Matrix. After a half dozen workshops, we felt that True North needed some focus. Join us July 17th. modusinstitute.com/course/true-...

Every Metric Weakens Your Strategy. You can focus attention on strategy or create lots of metrics and focus on them. Doing both creates new work, meetings, and confusion. If no one knows what your strategy is, all work being done weakens your strategy. humanework.substack.com/p/every-metr...

MASTERING HUMANE VISUAL MANAGEMENT WITH OBEYA ... class starts on the 4th (in 2 days!). Sign up now and join Tonianne DeMaria and me for the last round of this very special workshop. modusinstitute.com/course/obeya-four

Upheaval happens. We can deal with it gracefully, even when it does not return the favor. open.substack.com/pub/humanewo...

You know, resting when you are really nervous doesn't actually work.

We are running up on the next Mastering Visual Management class. Tonianne DeMaria & I are applying everything we've learned from the last three and approaching a lot of the content in even better ways. Starts early June so sign up before it is too late. Sign up: modusinstitute.com/course/obeya-four

How we create our own overload and how we get out of that trap. The discussion has begun. modusinstitute.com/blog/self-in...

We have met the enemy & they is us. In our WIP Whisperer workshop people discussed strategies to handle Self-Inflicted WIP & why we struggle to limit it. Our reactions to overload create more work. We aren't just talking reducing WIP, we're doing something about it. www.linkedin.com/pulse/taming...

A LinkedIn Article about some of the factors that lead to overload and unproductive, unenjoyable work. You can help end the vicious cycles you see every day. www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-sile...

Don't forget that your voice is your existence.

After fighting for months to get a self-generated version of one of my books on audible, I decided to test the autogen from Amazon. It is not bad. Not great, like eleven labs several revs ago. If you have subscribe it's free, if you own the kindle it's a 40 dollar book for 2 bucks. amzn.to/44eNyEa

Last week I took two sections of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt back to Omaha for a run of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me. I have not touched those panels literally in decades. Ed Elliot, Cal Anderson... people who guided me, helped me become who I am. 1/4

New book is going into layout and getting ready for the PR train. All about mitigating toxicity. Drawing on all the urban planning, the AIDS activism, and visual management.

This week I'm bring NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt to the Blue Barn Theater in Omaha as part of their production of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me. I haven't touched Quilt in 25 years. There a lot of personal history in these two sections and with omaha. Coming back for all is is very special.

You know, when I heard the glue was coming undone, I seriously thought the panels were in the inside of the truck. I am... terrified to learn that was not the case.

Finally have made it to the angry beaver to get some serious Canadian grub. Sorry @kegill.bsky.social

We are drowning in distractions. We are being pulled under by ennui. We are being overrun by toxicity. But we can fight this. We can fix this. We can still swim in these choppy waters. youtu.be/8w5SPJ60xxs

Finished the one on the left in Seattle and London and points in between. Started the one on the right. A time of rapid change. Good to have books to keep me focused and sane.

Excellent week teaching and speaking in London. It felt extraordinarily good to be out of the country for a while and be somewhere relatively sane.