Healthy Leadership for Thriving Organizations: Creating Contexts Where People Flourish

January 29, 2024January 29, 2024 / Justin Irving / Leave a comment

Welcome to purposeinleadership.com! Check out my new book with Baker Academic entitled Healthy Leadership for Thriving Organizations: Creating Contexts Where People Flourish.

Here’s what others are saying about the book:

“Justin Irving is masterful at elaborating all the essentials necessary to cultivate leadership that creates environments where people can flourish. Providing practical tools, he empowers readers to discover where they are and offers a clear path to thriving. Grounded in biblical truth, wisdom from accomplished practitioners, and sound research, Healthy Leadership for Thriving Organizations is a vital guide for leaders at every level.”

Tami Heim, president and CEO, Christian Leadership Alliance

“In this excellent and needed book, Justin Irving engages widely with Scripture and draws on helpful insights from the field of leadership studies to equip Christian leaders to pursue faithfulness for the glory of God and the flourishing of the organizations they are called to steward. I look forward to assigning this book in my own classes on leadership. Highly recommended.”

Nathan A. Finn, executive director, Institute for Transformational Leadership, North Greenville University

“Many Christians who believe that God has called them into roles as organizational leaders have wrestled with worldly expectations to be charismatic and all-knowing, yet Scripture urges them to ‘live a life worthy of the calling you have received’ by being ‘completely humble’ (Eph. 4:1–2). Irving reconciles humility and organizational leadership throughout this practical and theologically grounded guide to the kind of leadership our society so sorely needs.”

Katherine Leary Alsdorf, founding director, Redeemer’s Center for Faith & Work; former Silicon Valley CEO

“You can’t have a healthy organization without healthy leadership. Does that sound simplistic or obvious? The reality is that failed leadership hinders organizations and harms real people. In this book, Justin Irving has done us all a great service by integrating Christian truth with current research, as well as collecting insights from a wide range of effective leaders. The result is a resource that has the potential to clear the fog of much that distracts us from the priority of healthy organizational leadership.”

Matthew J. Hall, provost, Biola University

“In Healthy Leadership for Thriving Organizations, Justin Irving provides a theological framework for individuals and organizations that desire to flourish. Utilizing astute sources, best practices, and qualitative research from current ministry and marketplace leadership, Irving offers invaluable wisdom on leadership. Whether you are training leaders or establishing a thriving organizational culture, this book is a must-have resource. I highly recommend it.”

Jamaal E. Williams, lead pastor, Sojourn Church Midtown; president, Harbor Network; coauthor of In Church as It Is in Heaven: Cultivating a Multiethnic Kingdom Culture

“Healthy Leadership for Thriving Organizations is a gift to anyone ready to lead or live in a healthier organization. A sage once said that people will take care of the mission if their leaders first take care of them. This timely book helps turn such wisdom into transformed teams one page at a time. Its practical blend of Scripture, research, and firsthand reports from the front lines provides a recipe for leadership effectiveness and organizational success that should be on every leader’s menu.”

Dondi E. Costin, major general, US Air Force (retired)

Purpose in Leadership 2 Years Later

July 7, 2016July 6, 2016 / Justin Irving / 1 Comment

Photo Credit: Blog, By Dimitar Nikolov, Flickr

This week marks a bit of an anniversary for Purpose in Leadership. I began blogging two years ago.

Two years later I’m taking in the same view of Skagit Valley I was the day I set up the blog site and posted my first reflection (see: Perspectives on Prosperity for Leadership).

Top Post Themes

It’s been a fun journey that has included 138 posts so far and provides a place to engage a number of key topics. Among the top themes engaged by visitors are:

Reflections & Next Steps

As most anniversaries, this one provides a time to celebrate and reflect.

I celebrate Purpose in Leadership a place to pull together thoughts on topics about which I care deeply. I celebrate a place to share insights with current and former students. I celebrate the opportunity to connect with a wider network of readers.

I am not a daily blogger, but one thing I’ve learned along the way is that blogging is work. Regular blogging takes intentionality, ongoing learning, and time. I have a great deal of respect for those who have been doing this for more years than I have been blogging.

Even thought it has been work, work takes on meaning when it is connected to what we love and when it provides value to others. I hope these labors have been a blessing to some of the readers who follow along regularly. We’ll see where the journey leads in the coming months and years!

What is Your Experience with Poverty?

June 13, 2016June 11, 2016 / Justin Irving / Leave a comment

Photo Credit: Not so ninja., by digitalpimp., Flickr

Poverty is not a theme I take up frequently in this blog, but it is one that is important to our societies in general and to many individuals at a personal level.

In a previous post, I engaged the topic of Breaking the Cycle of Generational Poverty in the following manner:

While many people experience individual poverty in their lives due to the loss of a job or another tragedy, generational poverty emphasizes patterns where two or more generations continue in poverty within the family structure. Generational poverty is often characterized and reinforced by such causes as limited educational opportunities, poor health or ongoing battle with disease, and an inability to access resources such as land, finances, and information in the pursuit of a sustainable living.

Such a description helps to better understand the experience of poverty, which includes among other things a significant lack of choice. In his book Thriving in the City, T. Aaron Smith highlights this link between poverty and lack of choice.

Poverty and Lack of Choice

Smith notes, “The poor cannot simply will themselves into resources.” While this lack of resources does not guarantee that an individual will stay in poverty, it does guarantee that the poor most often face real and significant (not impossible) barriers along the way.

As I think about engaging such barriers, my personal focus is not primarily on the current political discourse or the role of government. Rather, the focus of my thinking here is on what individuals of faith, and leaders within faith communities, may do to engage such barriers inherent in the experience of poverty.

So what can persons of faith and leaders in faith communities do to help address such barriers?

A helpful place to start is following Jesus in both His heart for the poor and His desire to incarnate among the poor and disenfranchised of our world.

A Heart for the Poor

Consider Luke 4:18-19, a passage that arguably is the very mission statement of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus’ proclamation of good news to the poor arguably includes all of us as those who are poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3)—all of us who need Jesus to set us free from the bondage of sin. But I believe it also includes the literal poor. As I look at the way Jesus approached His earthly life, His words and approach to life demonstrated a heart for both the poor in spirit (all of us!) and the materially and physically poor. Jesus models a heart for the poor.

A Willingness to Live Among the Poor

Not only did Jesus model a heart for the poor, He also modeled a willingness to live among the poor. The very incarnation—Jesus breaking into our world to live among us—is the ultimate picture of this reality. But He also modeled this in specific ways in His seeking out the company of the disenfranchised and marginalized of society.

It is this later theme that takes up the focus of Smith’s book. Here’s the full title of this resource, Thriving in the City: A Guide for Sustainable Incarnational Ministry among the Urban Poor.

Grounding his reflections in the broader example of Jesus’ incarnation, Smith puts most of his energies into writing about practical examples of how living among the poor can help play a role in reducing some of the key barriers discussed above.

Regardless of where you choice to live, the book provides a helpful challenge to see and respond to God’s incarnational heart for the poor. Moving beyond important macro conversations of how multiple sectors can work together to provide economic answers to the challenges of poverty, resources like Smith’s book remind us that we each can choose small steps in helping to engage the needs of the poor through practical and sustainable steps.

What is Your Next Step in Leadership Training?

June 6, 2016June 5, 2016 / Justin Irving / Leave a comment

Photo Credit: leadership, by nist6dh, Flickr

It is my pleasure to highlight leadership training resources that have just been published.

In partnership with the Logos Mobile Ed team at Faithlife, over the past couple years we have been working on a set of course offerings now available here — Mobile Ed: Ministry Leadership Bundle (4 courses)

As the demands of leadership grow in our day, the importance of thoughtful engagement with leadership training rises with it. Evidenced by the popularity of events such as the Global Leadership Summit, engaging effective leadership practices in the life of the church and beyond is timely and relevant.

Individual Courses or the Ministry Leadership Bundle

These Mobile Ed leadership courses may be accessed either as a bundle with discount, or by selecting individual course offerings. The four courses in this bundle are the following:

Over 40 Hours of Instructional Content Made Accessible

Averaging around 10 hours of instructional content in each course, the learning units in the courses are designed to provide relevant leadership content in an accessible manner. As a self-paced learning experience, each unique learning portion is captured in a video that ranges from about 5-10 minutes. This model allows learners to walk through a wealth of content in manageable learning segments.

Here is a quick overview of some of the themes captured in each course.

LD101 — Introducing Ministry Leadership (course available here)

Why leadership? Why Now?
Approaching Leadership from a Christian Perspective
Frameworks for Ministry Leadership
Self-Leadership
Leading Individuals
Leading Teams and Groups
Leading Churches and Organizations
Thoughts on Leading with Purpose

LD102 — The Ministry Leader and the Inner Life (course available here)

The Process of Spiritual Transformation and Essential Features of Self Leadership
Personal Formation: Life Story, Life Calling, Life Values, Life Motivation and Gifts, Spiritual Gifts, Life Passion, and Emotional Maturity
Spiritual Formation: Introduction to Spiritual Disciplines, Holistic Perspective, Eternal Perspective, Divine Perspective, and Joyful Perspective
Pursuing God through the Disciplines of the Mind, Heart, Action, and Community
Leadership and the Centered Life

LD201 — Leading Teams and Groups in Ministry (course available here)

Why Team Leadership?: Team Challenges and Benefits
Biblical and Theological Foundations for Decentralized Leadership
Team Leadership: Cultural Relevance
Team Leadership: Pragmatic Effectiveness
Servant Leadership and the Effectiveness of Teams
Healthy Teams: Driven by 5 Questions
Healthy Leadership: The Role of the Leader and Dimensions of Team Leadership
Healthy Team Contexts

LD202 — Communication and Organizational Leadership (course available here)

Class Focus and Rationale
The Leadership Communication Pyramid
Leadership Communication: Types, Models, and Elements of Communication
Leading Organizational Culture: The Elements of Culture and the Leader at the Intersection
Leading through Organizational Conflict
Leading Visionary Change

Come join me on this leadership training journey, now available through the Logos Mobile Ed Ministry Leadership Bundle.

How Do You Work in the 24/7 Culture?

May 31, 2016May 30, 2016 / Justin Irving / 1 Comment

Photo Credit: Time, by JD, Flickr

The cover of a Harvard Business Review edition recently grabbed my attention — “Managing the 24/7 Workplace … ‘Always available’ cultures breed problems.”

Facing the “Always Available” Workplace

I’m not sure what your work environment looks like, but the reality of the 24/7 workplace is impacting an increasing number of sectors and an increasing number of employees. Reid and Ramarajan put it this way:

“To satisfy those demands [of the high-intensity workplace], employees arrive early, stay late, pull all-nighters, work weekends, and remain tied to their electronic devices 24/7.”

For a few, this is not necessarily problematic, even though it may not be healthy. These individuals may enjoy the fast-paced work environment that goes along with such a 24/7-type work culture. For others, the “always available” mode of work life grinds against the core of the work-life balance they desire.

While such work environments may be most closely associated with the always-on contexts of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, the nature of contemporary work tools expands this reality to most organizations. Regardless of the field within which you work, paying attention to how you manage always-available communication like email and smartphones is an issue that nearly every adult must manage in our age.

3 Hours of Your Day

One source indicates that in 2015 the average person in the US spent around 174 minutes on their mobile device per day. This is up from around 22 minutes in 2009.

While some of this dramatic increase is due to browsing social media outlets and watching great things like the latest #chewbaccamom video (time well-spent of course!), much of this usage is also symptomatic of our “always-available” work expectations.

While I’m definitely on the end of frequently checking email and working to respond to work needs in a timely manner, I’m seeking to be more intentional these days about being intentional with times to step away from work and always-available communication in a balanced manner.

Intentionality

Here are a two targeted scheduling practices I aspire to increasingly move toward in managing a productive and balanced work life:

Schedule 2-3 times a day for engaging and responding to email:
Rather than approaching email in an “always-available” manner, I want to focus on meaningful and timely communication 2 or 3 times a day. For me, this will take effort. I have a pattern of almost habitual email checking throughout the day on my smartphone. While there are some up sides to this (timely responses being one), this pattern takes away from other important and focused work that needs to be accomplished.
Schedule regular time for focused work:
While administrative tasks such as meetings and email communication are regular and important parts of most organizational settings, typically these administrative tasks don’t move the most important work projects forward. Finding blocks of time to meaningfully engage these items helps to insure that the most important work does not just get discussed, but also accomplished. This relates to a previous discussion I shared about prioritizing the “Big Rocks” in our lives. See this post on priorities here.

So how are you managing your work life in light of these 24/7 workplace tendencies? What are your strategies to both remain relevant for your organization and focused on reclaiming work-life balance?

The World’s Toughest Job

May 8, 2016May 8, 2016 / Justin Irving / Leave a comment

On Mother’s Day, I’m reminded that the work that matters most in life is often unpaid.

Photo Credit: MOTHER, by the lost gallery, Flickr

At its core, work is what we do to contribute or add value to others. Hopefully this happens in the context of paid work for you, but any parent understands that mothers and fathers often engage in such unpaid work on a daily basis.

I love this video by American Greetings that captures to the beauty and importance of this work. Enjoy!

Priority #4: Purpose in Leadership and Meaning-Based Living

May 2, 2016May 2, 2016 / Justin Irving / 1 Comment

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I’m in a mini-series sharing my 4 Top Leadership Priorities. These priorities are central to what I teach others about leadership in classes, and these priorities inform how I want to lead personally.

In the past weeks I settled in on the first three priorities:

This week I will briefly engage the final priority — Priority #4: Purpose in Leadership and Meaning-Based Living.

Purpose Matters

Leaders must attend to many priorities in their work, but I argue that purpose needs to top this list of priorities. Others, such as Podolny, Khurana, and Besharov, have argued that leadership practitioners and scholars have lost sight of purpose due to a dominate focus on performance.

For leaders, performance does indeed need to be a focus. But alongside this, leaders and followers must also be able to contextualize the meaningfulness of this performance. That’s where purpose enters the discussion. Understanding purpose in leadership and work contributes to job satisfaction and an authentic belief that the work one does matters and is meaningful.

Beyond the Paycheck

Working for a paycheck is not insignificant. Work is a way to provide for many of the needs and wants we face in life. But as Eisenberg and Goodall put it, people also “want to feel that the work they do is worthwhile, rather than just a way to draw a paycheck…a transformation of its meaning—from drudgery to a source of personal significance and fulfillment.”

While purpose is important for leaders and followers alike, there is a special responsibility placed on leaders in this realm. As a leader, do you have a clear sense of not only what your organization needs to do (performance) but also why this needs to be done (purpose)?

Not Just a Good Idea

Having a sense of purpose—personally and organizationally—sounds good, but does it also bring about results?

I argue, and am seeing supported through research, that purpose also is connected to key organizational measures such as job satisfaction, leadership effectiveness, organizational commitment, and person-organization fit. For an introductory conversation around this research, see my post entitled Assessing Leadership — The Purpose in Leadership Inventory.

Leadership, Purpose, and You

Whether convinced of the importance of purpose through your own experience, or whether you are seeing the research-based evidence, it is time to bring the importance of purpose home to your life and leadership.

I encourage you to take some time in the coming week to think through the purpose that guides your life and work as a leader. I raise some questions for thinking about how to take the next steps with purpose in the following post: Leadership, Work, and the Priority of Purpose. Feel free to use these reflections and questions as you take these next steps in reflecting on purpose in your life and leadership.

In this series, I’ve laid out my top 4 leadership priorities. I hope they have been helpful, and I look forward to hearing what priorities you would add to the mix.

Here are the links to each of the posts in this series:

Priority #3: Team Leadership and a Collaborative Orientation

April 25, 2016April 25, 2016 / Justin Irving / 2 Comments

Photo Credit: collaborate, by Jonny Goldstein, Flickr

In the past two weeks I settled in on the first and second priorities: Servant Leadership and Follower Focus and Transformational Leadership and Organizational Transformation. This week I’ll settle in on the third priority: Team Leadership and a Collaborative Orientation.

Leadership & Collaboration

The great temptation of leaders is to try to go it alone. But as the complexity of our world increases, today’s challenges need insights from multiple perspectives. Collaborative approaches to leadership and the use of teams recognizes and affirms that great wisdom exists within the people of organizations.

Rather than providing an overly directive or top-down approach to leadership, collaborative and team-oriented approaches to leadership harnesses the wisdom and insights of the people on teams. This leadership commitment is about leveraging team wisdom and utilizing collaboration toward the end of decentralizing authority and empowering people to effectively carry out local work.

What is a Team?

In another post I tackle the question of how teams differ from groups. The core of my presentation in that article is the definitions or descriptions of bot teas and groups.

I describe teams as individuals bringing together coordinated work in light of collective goals. This description stands in contrast to groups that organize around individuals bringing together independent work in light of individual goals. Both teams and groups have an important role to play in collaborative efforts, but it is helpful to highlight the difference between the two. Whether using teams or groups, great wisdom can come through collaborative endeavors.

What are the Benefits of Teams?

So why are teams important? Again, I’ll point to a previous post in which I highlight 4 Benefits of Teams. In that post I argue that teams provide the following core benefits:

Better Ideas and Increased Insight
Increased Courage to Face Challenges
The Presence of Peer Support
A Context for Mentoring and Training

Teams, Collaboration, & You

Truth be told, everyone brings their own experience with teams to the table. Some love teams. Others may have experienced some of the challenges associates with teams. Either way, as the needs and demands our organizations face increase, so rises the need that leaders and followers alike have for collaborating with others and gaining the wisdom of teams.

Take some time in the coming days to think through meaningful steps you can take to lean into the wisdom of your team and foster a spirit of collaboration in your organization.

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In my final post next week, I’ll turn my attention to the fourth leadership priority: Purpose in Leadership and Meaning-Based Living.

Priority #2: Transformational Leadership and Organizational Transformation

April 18, 2016April 25, 2016 / Justin Irving / 3 Comments

Photo Credit: Butterfly, by David Yu, Flickr

Last week I settled in on the first priority: Servant Leadership and Follower Focus. This week I’ll settle in on the second priority: Transformational Leadership and Organizational Transformation.

A Commitment to Transformation

Complementing the follower-focus of servant leadership, transformational leadership is about creating broad and intrinsic ownership of the organization’s mission by leaders and followers alike. Such ownership happens as leaders and followers together mutually value and commit to transformation.

Although this commitment to transformation has significant organizational implications, I argue, particularly from a biblical perspective, that transformation of teams and organizations finds its roots in individual and personal transformation. If I want to lead an organization in a transformational journey, I must being willing to engage a process of transformation myself.

Presenting a vision for personal and spiritual transformation, Paul in the Bible wrote:

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” – 2 Corinthians 3:18

Much can be said about this verse and the surrounding arguments in 2 Corinthians, but the main point I want to make is that a commitment to personal transformation into Christ-like character is a deeply biblical and Christian concept. From such personal transformation springs forth transformation and other levels of life and leadership.

A Commitment to Transformation
is a Commitment to Ongoing Growth

At both the individual and organizational level, a commitment to transformation and change really comes down to a commitment to ongoing growth. While other forms of leadership may be content with a status-quo approach to maintain at minimal levels, transformational leadership is about raising one another’s aspirations—leaders and followers alike—to higher levels of impact and opportunity to serve.

There certainly are appropriate cautions that could be raised at this point. Focusing on growth toward higher levels of impact and opportunity to serve could be more about vain ambition than it is about the priority of serving others discussed in the last post. This is why beginning with personal transformation before organizational transformation is so important. We need to pay attention to the motives behind a desire for greater impact and service.

However, if we are actively paying attention and guarding against the negative dimensions of ambition, the pursuit of growth personally and organizationally often leads to significant health—both personally and organizationally. Pursuing transformation and change is really about maintaining on open posture towards growth. It is about maintaining a commitment to ongoing and life-long learning.

Creating Owners of the Organizational Mission

As a formal discipline of study, transformational leadership emphasizes need for leaders and followers alike to own the organizational mission. Other forms of may be content with autocrats dictating to others what needs to be done, but transformational leadership at its core is about engaging leaders and followers in what they want to do, not just what they have to do.

Transactional and autocratic forms of leadership are primarily based on a leader-follower exchange that incentivizes followers through extrinsic motivators. In contrast, transformational leadership is based on a leader-follower engagement that motivates followers intrinsically. Transformational leadership is about engaging followers in such a way that leaders and followers are mutually committed to the organization’s mission and are willing to undergo transformational change with organizational goals in view.

Francis Yammarino puts is this way:

“The transformational leader arouses heightened awareness and interests in the group or organization, increases confidence, and moves followers gradually from concerns for existence to concerns for achievement and growth.”

Rather than lining up willing renters in the cause of the organization’s vital mission, transformational leadership is all about lining up willing owners of the organization’s mission. People become owners of the mission because the mission itself becomes something that is intrinsically motivating. When this shift from extrinsic incentivizing to intrinsic motivation takes place for leaders and followers, organizational members move from a spirit renting to a spirit of owning.

If you want to help develop owners of the organizational mission, draw on the wisdom of transformational leadership theory. This will provide a foundation from which you may engage in the journey of ongoing growth and transformation in service of your organization’s important mission.

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In my next post, I’ll turn my attention to the third leadership priority: Team Leadership and a Collaborative Orientation.

Priority #1: Servant Leadership and Follower Focus

April 11, 2016April 17, 2016 / Justin Irving / 5 Comments

Photo Credit: Focus, by ihtatho, Flickr

Last week I shared my 4 Top Leadership Priorities.These priorities are central to what I teach others about leadership in classes, and these priorities inform how I want to lead personally.

In this post, I want to settle in on the first priority identified in that post: Servant Leadership and Follower Focus.

Greenleaf on Servant Leadership

Robert K. Greenleaf was one of the first people to write about servant leadership in the contemporary literature. Although it is easily argued that servant leadership has ancient roots, I’m grateful for voices like Greenleaf who brought attention to the practice of servant leadership in the context of modern organizations. Here is one look at Greenleaf’s priorities:

“The servant-leader is servant first…. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first…. The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived?”

Greenleaf was working out his approach to leadership in the context of AT&T at the time of these reflections. Others have gone on to engage this “servant first” approach to leadership in diverse organizational sectors since then. At the core of this servant first approach to leadership is the focus leaders place on follwers.

In my own dissertation research, I discovered that servant leadership practices are not only a good idea, but that they also are effective. Here are a few resources that point such findings: (IJLS Journal Article; PIL blog series).

The Core of Servant Leadership is Follower Focus

What differentiates servant leadership from other approaches to leadership? The short answer is “follower focus.”

Stone, Russell, and Patterson put it this way:

“The principal difference between transformational leadership and servant leadership is the focus of the leader…. The overriding focus of the servant leader is upon service to their followers…. The stress of servant leadership is upon the leader’s aim to serve. This desire to serve people supersedes organizational objectives. Servant leadership is a belief that organizational goals will be achieved on a long-term basis only by first facilitating the growth, development, and general well-being of the individuals who comprise the organization.”

In a previous post, I expressed this concept in the following manner:

“While the organization as a whole needs to be externally focused (serving its customers, constituents, or mission), the primary focus of the leader must be on serving and caring for the followers who are directly responsible for fulfilling the organization’s mission.”

At the end of the day, servant leaders care deeply about organizations meeting their goals. However, this commitment starts with care for and focus on followers.

When you consider your own approach to leadership and where your focus lies, where do followers fit into your primary commitments?

When honestly answered, are followers viewed primarily as a means to organizational ends, or are followers at the core of your leadership commitments, and thus valued primarily for who they are rather than simply what they contribute?

In my next post, I’ll turn my attention to the second leadership priority that further connects follower focus to organizational transformation and goal attainment.

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As always, I love to hear your thoughts. Please share them below.