The machines were never the hard part.
I'm Jay Olivo. I'm 63, I live in Lindenhurst, New York, in the same house my parents brought me home to as a baby, and I still have a day job. I'm the Engineering Manager at Oerlikon Metco in Westbury. I look after the equipment, the reliability, and the people who keep both running.
I got here the long way. I studied digital electronics at Island Technical and Drafting School and started out on the technical side. Over the years that turned into supervision, then maintenance, engineering, operations and reliability, at places like Estée Lauder, Coca-Cola, FreshDirect, AmerisourceBergen and now Oerlikon. The products changed. The job never did. Get it out the door on time, keep the equipment running, and keep good people wanting to come back tomorrow. That's the order on paper. On the floor it runs the other way.
Because the machines were never the hard part. A bearing tells you when it's going bad. People mostly don't. They just get quiet, and then one day they're gone.
The best bad review I ever got
Years ago a regional manager told me my leadership sucked. He meant it, and I believed him. I'd love to tell you I took it well. I didn't. I went home and got mad, and then I did the only useful thing I have ever done with being mad. I went and learned something. That search led me to the John Maxwell Team, to coach certification, to DISC, and to a lot of reading. The deeper I went, the clearer it got. My leadership didn't suck. It was untrained, and I'd had to go find the training on my own. Most people never do.
What I figured out
Most people who struggle as leaders aren't bad at it. They were never trained for it. We take our best technician, hand him a clipboard and a crew, and give him zero training for the new job. Then we act surprised when our best technician turns into our worst supervisor. It isn't his fault. He was empowered. Nobody equipped him.
That's the shift this whole site is about. It's not a block of hours on a schedule. It's a change in how you think and how you lead. The first shift is being good at the work. The second shift is becoming the person the work needs next, whether that work is a crew, a department, a business, or something you're building of your own.
What I do about it
So I work two jobs, and I like both of them. By day I lead engineering. The rest of the time I help people get equipped for the second shift. I wrote a book about it, Leadership Between the Lines, about leading from the dotted white line between management and the floor. I built the LBL-10, a ten-part framework for the skills new leaders are expected to have and almost never get taught. I speak and run workshops for teams. And in 2017 I founded Leadership TeamBuilder, a 501(c)(3) that teaches young people to lead themselves, long before anybody hands them a crew.
Here's how the money works, so you never have to wonder. Every dollar from my coaching, speaking, workshops and The Second Shift goes to Leadership TeamBuilder. I donate my time.
I'm not a guru, and I don't have a system you have to buy. I'm an operator who also coaches. What I've got is stories with real names and real scars on them, what each one cost, and what I'd do differently. You take what fits your floor and leave the rest.
I'm also the guy who missed a flight in Chicago on his very first solo field call. When my managers asked how the trip went, I told them the whole story and then gave them two sentences. I should have timed it better, and next time I will do better. No excuses. That's still the standard I hold myself to, and it's the one I'll hold you to.
Off the clock
I married young. By 23 I had a wife, a mortgage and a baby boy, and nobody gave me a manual for that job either. I've coached Little League and soccer and led scout troops. Today I'm married to Jantra. We got married twice, once here with my family and friends and once in Thailand with hers. And I'm still up early and on the floor.
When I walk into a room, my theme song is "My Hero" by the Foo Fighters. Not because I want to be one. Because heroes are ordinary people who show up without capes or superpowers. That's who I write for: supervisors, leads, new managers, owners, and anybody else who keeps showing up. If that's you, pull up a chair.
The paperwork
Letters after a name tell you somebody sat through the class. The stories tell you whether it took.
- Engineering Manager, Oerlikon Metco
- Author, Leadership Between the Lines
- Creator, the LBL-10 leadership framework
- John Maxwell Certified Coach, Speaker and Trainer, Executive Director level
- Certified DISC consultant
- CPMM, Certified Professional Maintenance Manager
- Digital electronics, Island Technical and Drafting School
- Founder, Leadership TeamBuilder, a 501(c)(3), 2017
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