H. Watson Jordan Ed.D.

Watson is an author, a lifelong educator, and a certified WHY.os trainer. His company, The Resilience Initiative, promotes resilience around the world. Watson works with teams using the WHY Operating System to drive superior insight, understanding, and production. This algorithm guides the identification of individual and group zones of genius and explains how to leverage them.

As an author, his book Mine, Ours, and Yours: A Father's Journey through the Life and Death of a Child, explores tragic despair and unearths hopeful resilience. His second book, Resilience: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Made Us Wiser and Stronger, is a collection of essays from global leaders who provide thoughtful and powerful insight into how adverse conditions do indeed drive us to become wiser and stronger.

As a lifelong educator, Watson has developed and led programs in team-building, technology, and wellness. He engages with organizations of all types and especially values working with schools and nonprofits.

Watson’s podcast, #Resilience, explores how knowing your WHY fortifies your resilience.

Watson Quoted

“There are nine WHYs. Go online and participate in the algorithm. (It takes some people five minutes, some people 15 minutes, but it's really quite quick.) You get the answer immediately.”

1.     Contribute
2.     Trust
3.     Make Sense
4.     Better Way
5.     Right Way
6.     Challenge
7.     Mastery
8.     Clarify
9.     Simplify

“Your WHY is something that’s meaningful to you.”

“For someone in admission or advancement, their success depends on developing relationships. So if that's fulfilling for them, they're kind of a natural to do all the things you have to do to be good at that. So the WHY of Trust may be admission or advancement.”

“…You can think of each of the WHY's as kind of a light bulb. And the WHY is the amount of current that the light bulb gets. The WHY that the algorithm gives us is the one that gets the most current.”

“Where-How-What get the most current.”

“It’s uncanny how accurate the algorithm is at getting people.”

“What is the WHY.os of your school?”

What You’ll Learn

The difference between an elevator pitch created by a person and one created by AI
What are the 9 WHYs
How the 9 WHYs relate to private school administrators, teachers, and staff
What WHY does for you, your team, and your school
What Rob’s WHY is
How the WHYs help you work with others.

Resources

The Five Love Languages

Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action

Get more brilliant ideas and brain food by signing up for our newsletter. We make your job easier.

Featured

Rob Norman

Best Boy, InspirED School Marketers

Rob has 25 years of independent school marketing experience as principal of Turnaround Marketing Communications, a branding and marketing firm specializing in independent schools. Rob shares his experience on InspirED School Marketers by blogging, editing the Daily Jolt, and by podcasting with fascinating independent school movers and shakers. As InspirED's Best Boy — a term borrowed from theater, Rob's longtime passion — Rob loves to be out and about, meeting with school marketers, learning their needs, and helping them overcome challenges. Be sure to ask Rob about his golf game.

LinkedIn

More Podcasts To Make Your Job Easier

Podcasts 2

How to Advocate for Yourself as a Director of MarCom at a Private School [Podcast]

with Penny Abrahams, Senior Consultant, Independent School Management

Strengthening MarCom in Small Private Schools [Podcast]

with Aubrey Bursch, founder and CEO of Easy School Marketing.

Students As Communications Apprentices [Podcast]

with Lauren Campbell, Publications Manager at Cretin-Derham Hall, a Catholic high school in St. Paul, Minnesota.

How to Be a Leader in an Independent School [Podcast]

with Dr. Carrie Grimes
Assistant Professor of the Practice, Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations
Director, Vanderbilt University, Peabody College, Independent School Leadership Program (M.Ed.)