VISUAL LEADERSHIP

Where the psychology of work meets
visual operational excellence. 

Taught by Jim Benson, Jenna Adams-Valadez and Jesse DePriest

LIVE IN OMAHA:
July 24, 2025 -
8:30 AM to 3:30 PM

Hosted by
Goodwill Industries
72nd and Ames
Omaha, NE 

Limited to 36 participants to ensure deep collaboration and personalized attention.

All previous cohorts reached capacity quickly.

Through hands-on activities and expert insights, you’ll master:

  • Creating control centers that keep teams focused, leadership informed, and problems to a minimum.
  • Seeing how work is actually flowing (or not) and what to do about it.
  • Creating an org that seizes opportunities, rather than watch them go by.
  • Managing the overload of both projects and management (how to control the constant interruptions of being a leader).

Focused, Designed, Constant Effective Orgs 

  • Jim and Jesse
  • Level: Leadership (Aspiring or Current)
  • Course Time: 6
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What You Get

Leaders (current and aspiring) will gain practical frameworks for creating workplaces where people thrive while delivering measurable business results through visual systems that make work visible, manageable, and continuously improving. You'll learn to establish comprehensive systems that enable both operational performance and human outcomes, design talent attraction and retention strategies through transparent career development systems, and build communities of practice that accelerate learning and innovation.

The session provides immediate implementation tools for systematic upskilling, real-time performance visualizations, and adaptive strategies that work with human psychology rather than against it—enabling you to transform your organization's culture while achieving sustainable operational excellence.
Course overview
A live event in Omaha, Nebraska

This intensive collaboration between Jim Benson (Modus Institute) and Jesse DePriest (5L Performance Group) delivers a comprehensive approach to building lean leaders who want to create and drive sustainable organizational excellence.

You'll discover how to build lasting improvement (more effective, more efficient, more focused, more engaged) by combining visual management systems with behavioral economics insights, creating the psychological and operational infrastructure that makes improvement inevitable rather than accidental.

The workshop integrates Jim's expertise in humane Obeya practices and tactical visualizations (Personal Kanban, Kanban, Lean Coffee) with Jesse's proven 5L methodology (Love, Listen, Learn, Lead, Lean) and 30+ years of leadership experience across manufacturing and service industries.


Also in Omaha - Intro to Obeya

Learn work visualization and creating one central place where everyone on your team can see their work, collaborate, make decisions, and act with confidence. No Agile or Lean team should be without it. - Jim Benson partners with Omaha's Agile for Defense on this one.
Spend the day with

Jim Benson Jesse DePriest and Jenna Adams-Veladez

Jim Benson is the creator of Personal Kanban and Lean Coffee and was part of the team that created the use of Kanban for software. He is a founder of Modus Institute, senior faculty with the Lean Enterprise Institute, and won a Shingo Award for his book Personal Kanban with Tonianne Demaria. His books also include The Collaboration Equation (about building visual leadership systems), and Why Limit WIP and Why Plans Fail. He is an Omaha native, spending time with family and teaching this class.

Also check out his / Modus' Substack.
Jenna Adams-Valadez is the Owner and Principal Consultant for The Lean Eye, LLC, a Coach for the 5L Performance Group, a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, and Change Management Specialist. She has over 20 years experience in coaching and mentoring, as well as over 12 years of hands-on continuous improvement experience in a variety of roles from Union Pacific Railroad to non-profits across the state of Nebraska. Jenna has led several projects which adapted Lean tools and concepts to sectors outside of manufacturing, and is dedicated to upskilling others through solving problems that matter to them. When she's not collaborating with clients or experimenting with practical applications of artificial intelligence, Jenna serves as Steering Committee Chair for the 2026 Railroads in Native America Forum.
Jesse DePriest is a Lean/Six Sigma Black Belt with over 25 years of leadership experience across manufacturing and service industries, holding roles from Director of Continuous Improvement to General Manager while maintaining academic credentials including BS in Mechanical Engineering, MS in Operations Management, and an MBA. His military background includes eight years as a US Army officer and helicopter pilot, complementing his professional expertise in process improvement methodologies.

Jesse has taught Operations Management at Midland University's MBA program and Lean fundamentals at Metropolitan Community College. He actively contributes to the lean community through his service on the Iowa Lean Consortium, Siouxland Lean Consortium, and the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) with regular speaking engagements and facilitating monthly Lean coffees in the Omaha and Lincoln area. Jesse resides in Omaha with his wife, Katie.