THE GAZEBO AND THE MAN WHO BUILT IT
A Tribute to Jim Hooper
Sometimes leadership can be measured in budgets, schedules,
policies, and reports. And sometimes it can be measured by something as simple
as a roof over somebody’s head.
Jim Hooper, our General Manager, recently gave us an example
of the second kind.
Smoking is discouraged here, as it is almost everywhere
today, and understandably so. But some of our residents still smoke. Some have
smoked for most of their lives. Some would like to quit but have found that
easier said than done. Whatever the reason, they were required to smoke
outside, exposed to Florida's sun, rain, heat, and whatever else the weather
decided to throw at them.
Jim could have simply said, “Those are the rules.”
Instead, he recognized the people affected by the rules.
And eventually, there appeared a gazebo.
That gazebo is more than lumber, roofing, posts, and
concrete. It represents something increasingly rare in this world: empathy
translated into action.
Jim Hooper has a formidable responsibility. More than 200
people live here, each with a lifetime of experiences, habits, preferences,
complaints, needs, personalities, and expectations. Keeping such a community
functioning requires considerable administrative talent. Keeping it functioning
while remembering that every resident is an individual human being requires
something more.
It requires empathy.
Jim has demonstrated that quality repeatedly. He listens. He
pays attention. He tries to help. He understands that managing a senior
community is not merely managing a building. It is caring for people who have
spent entire lifetimes caring for others.
The smokers' gazebo may seem like a relatively small
accomplishment in the enormous operation he supervises. I think it is precisely
the opposite. Small acts often reveal character better than grand gestures.
Jim did not have to approve smoking to recognize the
humanity of the smoker. He did not have to abandon policy to make that policy
more humane.
That distinction is important.
Good administrators enforce rules. Great administrators
understand the people who must live under them.
And so, Jim, congratulations on the gazebo.
But more importantly, congratulations on what it represents.
It represents leadership with a heart.
THE GAZEBO
He didn't build it for applause,
Or because a rule required;
He built it because some folks outside
Were wet and hot and tired.
The rule remained: Don't smoke if you can.
The warning still was sound.
But Jim saw people, not a habit,
Sitting there on open ground.
So posts went up, a roof appeared,
And shelter took its place,
A simple little gazebo,
But also an act of grace.
For leadership is more than rules,
More than budgets, charts, and plans;
It's knowing when a regulation
Needs the kindness of human hands.
Two hundred lives are in his care,
Two hundred stories too;
Two hundred different sets of needs
Come walking into view.
And somehow Jim keeps listening,
With patience through it all,
Understanding that the smallest need
May not be small at all.
So here's to Jim Hooper, General Manager,
And the lesson that he gives:
A building shelters residents.
Empathy makes it where we live.
