Doug Lemov thinks the problem in most classrooms is not dumb students or terrible teachers. He believes the problem is disguised intent – students many times are uncertain what they are suppose to be doing.

“Stand still when you’re giving instructions” is one of Lemov’s pieces of advice for teachers. Do you want the student trying to anticipate where you are going or listening to what you want them to do? Stand still gets rid of noise. Educators call this classroom management.

“Business” management is no different. It is amazing how often our intent as leaders is muddled, how often what we thought we said wasn’t interpreted the way we meant. So, before we start the same sort of name calling of employees and managers, let’s take a moment to make sure we are communicating.

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• Doug Lemov was profiled in The New York Times Magazine as a part of a larger story titled “How To Build a Better Teacher.”
• Lemov has a book that just came out from Jossey-Bass titled “Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College.” You’ll probably be hearing more about that here.
• The book that goes to great lengths to describe this problem in the business world is The Four Conversations by Jeffrey Ford and Laurie Ford. I did an interview with Jeffrey last year where we get into how important communication is in the success of managers.