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I'm not selling anything.

Most of what I know about running a shop I learned by getting it wrong first. The rest I learned by admitting I didn't have the answer and listening to the men doing the work.

A lot of managers and supervisors set themselves up as the guru in the building. The job is closer to the opposite: you're the shop's servant. You clear the road, and you give the crew somewhere to bring a problem so it gets solved together instead of handed up.

This trade doesn't have many places where that gets said out loud.

So if you run a shop, lead a crew, or got handed both without being told how — tell me how you're doing it. What works in your building, and what you tried that didn't. Where you think I've got something wrong.

If you're trying to make your technicians better at the work, I want to hear from you.