Leadership for the maintenance and engineering side of the plant

They handed you the keys. Nobody handed you the manual.

I'm Jay Olivo, the Engineering and Reliability Manager at a manufacturing plant on Long Island. I run an engineering and maintenance department, and I've spent my working life watching the same thing happen. The best technician on the floor gets made supervisor, everybody shakes their hand, and then they're on their own. I was that person once. This site is what I wish somebody had handed me that first week.

Take the 3-minute Quick Check

Ten statements about how you lead. You get a score, one strength, and the first thing to work on.

Jay Olivo on a plant floor in a hi-vis vest, holding a two-way radio, talking with one hand raised.

Your first Monday as the new supervisor

Friday you were the best technician in the building. Monday you're the maintenance supervisor. The crew you ate lunch with last week is watching to see what you'll do, and a couple of them think the job should have been theirs. Your boss said you'd be fine. HR gave you a login. Nobody told you what to do the first time your buddy shows up late. Or the first time a line goes down, every eye in the room turns to you, and fixing it yourself is no longer your job.

Maybe you're the one who did the promoting. You gave your best mechanic the clipboard because he earned it. Now the floor is quiet, the numbers are slipping, and you can't figure out why your best technician is turning into your worst supervisor.

Almost nobody fails at leading because they're bad at it. They fail because nobody trained them for it. Somebody handed them the keys and walked away. Here's the deal I make with my own team, and it's the same deal I'm making with you. You are empowered. It is my job to equip you. Empowerment requires action, by both of us.

Why I built this

I got my first crew at nineteen, on a plant floor here on Long Island. I was a mechanic, and then one day I was the shift supervisor. I learned the job the way most of us do: by getting it wrong in front of people, and then fixing it. Most of what I know, I learned standing next to something that broke, and more than a few times I was the one who broke it.

I'm still out there, running an engineering and maintenance department, on a plant floor with equipment that has to run and people who have to want to run it. This site is where I hand it over: what broke, who paid for it, and what I'd do differently if somebody gave me that first crew back.

Why "the second shift"?

On a plant floor, second shift is when the building changes hands. Same machines, different people, different problems. That's the moment I care about: when you stop being the one who does the work and become the one who leads it. Whether "it" is a crew, a department, a company, or something you're building of your own, that change in how you think is the second shift.

Yes, it's a plant floor pun. I'm an engineer. We don't get many.

Make the shift with me

Here's what I'll do. Every Saturday at 7 a.m. Eastern, a letter shows up in your inbox. Same day, every week. Some weeks it's about a machine. Some weeks it's about a person. It is always something that really happened, and what it cost.

Now I'm asking you for three things. Read it Saturday. Try the one thing it asks on Monday. Then hit reply and tell me what happened, the good and the ugly. I read every reply. The best ones turn into letters, and your name stays out unless you tell me to use it.

Some of you will want more than a letter. For you there's The Second Shift: eight seats, twice a month on video, with me in the room. You don't have to want that today.

Most Mondays I get it right. Once in a while I still miss something, because nobody is perfect. I checked. When that happens, you'll hear about it Saturday. That's the whole arrangement. Make your habit excellence.

Get the Saturday letter

One letter, Saturday morning at 7 a.m. Eastern. One real story from a real floor, what it cost, and what to do with it on Monday. It's free, and you can leave anytime.

Each one is about a single thing that happened and what it cost. It names a mistake, an open question, or something I am still deciding. If a draft costs me nothing, it is a LinkedIn post, and it goes there instead.

Here is one. I spent six hours on a ladder one night, opening and closing a valve by hand to keep a boiler alive. The part that would've fixed it in forty-five minutes sat on a cart twenty feet away. The plant manager wouldn't stop production long enough to let me put it in. That letter isn't about the boiler.

You will get one email asking you to confirm. That is it. No spam, and every letter has an unsubscribe link at the bottom.

Where do you want to start?

"I just got handed a crew.": Take the LBL-10 Quick Check. Ten statements, about three minutes, nothing to download. You get a score, one thing you're already doing well, and the one thing to work on first.
"I promoted my best technician, and I'm starting to worry.": You're not wrong to worry. Get the letter and forward it to your new supervisor every Saturday. It's the same problem from both sides of the desk. If you want me in front of your whole team, the speaking and workshops page says how.
"I want to work on this with people like me.": The Second Shift. Eight seats. We meet on video twice a month for ninety minutes, first Tuesday and third Thursday at 7 p.m. Eastern. You apply, and the price is posted right on the page.
"I want the whole story.": Read Leadership Between the Lines. Real floors, real names, and the failures are mine.
"I want to help the next generation.": Leadership TeamBuilder is the nonprofit I founded in 2017. It teaches anyone to lead and grow.

Who is writing this

I'm 63, I live in Lindenhurst, New York, and I still have a day job. I'm the Engineering and Reliability Manager at Oerlikon Metco in Westbury.

My work has been in manufacturing and operations. Estée Lauder, Coca-Cola, FreshDirect, AmerisourceBergen, Oerlikon. Plant floors, where a bad decision shows up on the floor and not in a slide deck.

I wrote a book, built a framework, and picked up a few certifications along the way. They're proof I've been around. They're not proof I have it figured out.

My first year at Estée Lauder, a capping machine kept putting crooked caps on plastic jars. So I tightened the grippers a quarter turn. Then another. Then another. One of the women downstream went and got Peter Pagioli, who watched for a minute and told me I was squeezing the jars out of round. Every turn had made it worse. I'd made all of them with confidence.

The longer version is on the about page, including why my theme song is by the Foo Fighters.

Questions people ask before they sign up

Is the letter really free?: Yes. Every letter ends with a short note about The Second Shift, and that's the whole pitch. The letter doesn't get worse if you never click it.
Why does the money go to a nonprofit?: Because I have a day job that pays me, and this was never built to be a second one. Leadership TeamBuilder is the nonprofit I founded in 2017. A seat in The Second Shift, or a company booking a workshop, pays for its work with young people. I donate my time.
Are you a coach?: I run an engineering and maintenance department for a living, and I also coach. I hold the Maxwell certification and I use DISC, and both help. But I'm not selling you a system. I'm telling you what happened on real floors, what it cost, and what I'd do differently.
I'm not in maintenance or engineering. Is this for me?: The stories come from maintenance and engineering because that's where I've spent my life. The lesson usually doesn't care where you work. If you're responsible for people who used to be your peers, you'll recognize yourself.
What if I sign up and it's not for me?: Every letter has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Click it and you're gone. I will not chase you.