A weekly letter

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

I'm Jay Olivo. I manage engineering at a plant on Long Island. I help supervisors, managers and builders make the shift nobody trains them for: from being good at the work to leading it.

Why I built this

I've spent my whole working life watching good people get promoted into jobs nobody trained them for. The best mechanic becomes the supervisor. The top salesperson becomes the manager. The person with the side business wakes up one day with a payroll. Everybody claps, shakes their hand, and then they're on their own.

I was one of them. 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.

This site is where I hand it over. Not theory. The real stories, what each one cost, and the tools I wish somebody had given me the first week I had a crew. 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 "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.

Where do you want to start?

"I just got handed a crew.": Take the LBL-10 Quick Check. Ten statements, about three minutes. You get one strength and one thing to work on first.
"I want steady help, not a seminar.": Get the letter. One real story a week and what to do with it. Free, and you can leave anytime.
"I want to work on this with people like me.": The Second Shift is a small paid room for people making the shift. You apply, and the price is posted right on the page.
"I want Jay in front of my team.": Speaking and workshops. The signature talk is "Why Your Best Technician Makes Your Worst Supervisor."
"I want the whole story.": Read Leadership Between the Lines.
"I want to help the next generation.": Leadership TeamBuilder is the nonprofit I founded in 2017. It teaches young people to lead themselves.

Get the 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.

Who is writing this

I am Jay Olivo. I am 63, I live in Lindenhurst, New York, and I still have a day job. I am an engineering manager at Oerlikon Metco.

My work has been in manufacturing and operations. Estée Lauder, Coca-Cola, AmerisourceBergen, FreshDirect, 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.

Get the letter

One letter a week for people who already have a full plate and are building something anyway. Free. Leave whenever you want.

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