I had 132 active minutes, versus an average of 430 over the past several months.
I tweaked my knee on a 5-mile run two Sundays ago and it’s been a little funny ever since. I ignored it for the first week, but I was getting a sharp pain just walking up my house steps! I’m not typically good at listening to my body, but I finally decided to think long-term and take it easy.
Peter Attia talks about how important is to stay in the game. If you get injured and can’t exercise, you start to lose muscle mass, and it’s hard to get it back (especially for those of us over 40). I didn’t want to do something severe to my knee.
What did I do instead of running for two weeks? I did Crossfit (no heavy lifting), walking, and weightlifting. I focused on arms: pullups, push press, and things like that.
I’m going to start to push it this week, and I’ll try some new shoes!
I’ve used my Vivo Barefoot shoes all year with no issue, but it’s possible that the 3mm of cushion wasn’t enough for me. I’m going to test on some Altra Escalante shoes that have 24mm of cushion (which is called “medium” despite being 8x the Vivo!).
My VO2Max had been increasing leading up to this break, but has curved back down. My 2024 goal is to increase it three points from 43 to 46, and I’m at 45.
How are you doing on your physical goals for 2024? Give me an update at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz.
Kevin 🏃🏋️
Survey Is Still Open
How am I doing? What would make it the newsletter more valuable? Is there anything you’d like me to write about?
Please fill it out and let me know what you think about The Catalyst!
A Quote
“
An effective leader or coach doesn’t simply rely on bringing in new players or looking outside the team every time a shift in strategy occurs. The smartest coaches embed the expectation of change in the organization’s work culture and then develop individual talents in existing team members.
— Michael K. Simpson et. al. in "Unlocking Potential"
Three Things
1 - ❤️🌱 love.life - John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods, has started a new company focused on health and wellbeing. Their first location just opened in LA. It’s got concierge medical services, fitness, and food all in one place. You can do VO2Max testing, DEXA scans, genetic testing - and pickleball 🤣. Pricing isn’t easy to find, but looks like it starts at $9,000 USD per year.
2 - 👩💻 Mem, Notes App - Someone recently shared this note-taking app with me and I wanted to share it with you. As you can tell by the URL, AI features prominently for this app. It uses GPT-4 to allow you to query your own notes, which is a powerful feature (although that convenience comes at the risk of privacy). Let me know if you check it out! (link to video review)
3 - 🚴 Tour de France Drinking Raids - It’s been a while since I watched the Tour, but I had no idea that back in the day the riders would raid cafes and steal food and drinks during their rides. The video shows riders jumping off bikes and grabbing everything they could before getting back on their bikes and chasing the peloton.
Deeper Dive on Inclusion Safety
Do you know what psychological safety is?
For a while I didn’t!
I’d hear it at work - usually when an employee mentioned that they didn’t have psychological safety - but I didn’t really know what it was or how to improve it.
Now, years later, having read a couple books on the topic, plus consuming articles, videos, and having conversations with other leaders, I understand psychological safety - and it is a powerful concept!
You may have heard of Google’s Project Aristotle, where they studied 180 different teams over two years, with the goal of understanding what factors were present in the best teams.
What was the number one factor?
You guessed it. Psychological safety.
The other four were Dependability, Structure and Clarity, Meaning, and Impact. In addition to having psychological safety, good teams get things done on time with high quality, have clear roles, plans, and goals, have a sense of purpose, and make a difference.
That means if you want to optimize the performance of your team, you can’t ignore psychological safety.
In fact, don’t ignore psychological safety anywhere you’re a part of humans interacting!
Your spouse wants psychological safety. Your kids want it. Your sports team and hobby groups want it, too.
Since psychological safety is such a big topic, we’re not going to cover it all today. I’ll introduce the overall framework, and only deep dive into the first stage - inclusion safety.
What is Psychological Safety?
In Google’s Project Aristotle they defined psychological safety as “being safe to take risks and be vulnerable without fear of being embarrassed or ridiculed.”
Amy Edmondson, credited with doing a lot of the core research on psychological safety, defines it as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”
And finally, Timothy R. Clark, author of “The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety” took that definition and also broke it down into a framework.
As his book title suggests, he describes four stages of psychological safety, aligned with what people need: 1 - Inclusion Safety - Being included. 2 - Learner Safety - Safe to learn and grow. 3 - Contributor Safety - Safe to contribute. 4 - Challenger Safety - Safe to challenge the status quo.
To be ‘safe’ in this context is to be able to do these things without fear of being embarrassed, marginalized, or punished.
“When psychological safety is high, people take more ownership and release more discretionary effort, resulting in higher-velocity learning and problem solving. When it’s low, people don’t muscle through the fear. Instead, they shut down, self-censor, and redirect their energy toward risk management, pain avoidance, and self-preservation.”
It isn’t a lack of accountability. It isn’t a lack of discipline. It isn’t a lack of consequences.
I’ve found this to be one of the biggest misconceptions about psychological safety! Some people think it means they can do or say whatever they feel like, and if a manager or peer reacts negatively, they believe it violates psychologically safety.
Not true.
One of the key concepts of psychological safety is that you’re increasing intellectual friction and decreasing social friction. There are still consequences for low quality or missing deadlines, but they’re not arbitrary and capricious. They’re clearly stated and consistently upheld.
“…psychological safety does not imply ease or comfort. In contrast, psychological safety is about candor and willingness to engage in productive conflict so as to learn from different points of view.” and “Psychological safety is not an “anything goes” environment where people are not expected to adhere to high standards or meet deadlines. It is not about becoming “comfortable” at work.”
But enough about the overall concept of psychological safety! Let’s dig into inclusion safety specifically.
Inclusion is Graduating from Exclusion
Humans do not like to be excluded. We’re community animals and we want to belong.
In the wild, humans are not the strongest animals. We don’t have sharp claws and teeth. But we’re smart! When we work together we can best any animal. We can survive the winter. We can forage for food and create shelter.
Working alone? Survival drops significantly.
Maybe the wolves just want a hug?
We’re hard-wired to be part of a group because it used to mean death. Even though the consequences today are typically lower, we feel the same deep dread when we’re excluded from a group. Exclusion is painful!
So the first stage of psychological safety is about being included.
Inclusion safety is about being safe because you’re you. What are the prerequisites to being granted inclusion safety? Being “human and harmless.” (Tim Clark)
That’s a pretty low bar - we’re all human, and most of us are harmless. So why is inclusion safety not the default? What gets in the way?
What Gets in the Way of Inclusion?
You do.
Well, more specifically, your ego and insecurities. Don’t worry - I’m not singling you out - we all have them. The goal is to become aware of them so we can see where they’re negatively influencing our behaviors.
“Key concept: Excluding a person is more often the result of personal unmet needs and insecurities than a genuine dislike of the person.”
Instead of granting people inclusion safety because they are “human and harmless,” we scrutinize and we judge. We compare. We assess whether the other person is worthy of being in the same group as us.
“Withholding inclusion safety is a sign that we’re engaged in a fight with our own willful blindness. We’re self-medicating with enchanting tales about our distinctiveness and superiority. If it’s a mild case of snobbery, that may be easy to dismiss. But if it’s a more severe case of narcissistic supremacy, that’s a bigger problem.”
A common theme here at “The Catalyst” is working on yourself, and it turns out psychological safety is no different! If you want to include others, you have grant yourself that safety first. You have to love yourself and give yourself grace.
“Learn to love yourself first. People with low self-regard have a hard time being inclusive.”
Changing your relationship with yourself is beyond the scope of a mere newsletter, of course, but I wanted to mention it 🤣
Love yourself.
What would it look like if we more easily granted inclusion safety?
What Inclusion Looks Like
There’s a new kid at school nervously looking around the lunchroom. All the other kids are already seated.
Scanning the room, they see an open seat next to some friendly-looking kids.
Lunch tray in hand, they amble over to the open seat and meekly ask, “Can I sit here?”
…
“Sure! What’s your name?”
At Inclusion High, the new girl is optimistic she'll be welcomed at the lunch table.
That’s inclusion safety. And if you changed schools like I did as a kid, you know it doesn’t always play out that way!
Inclusion safety is the informal acceptance of a new person into the group. Formal acceptance is when they signed their offer paperwork.
They are not informally accepted until they’re given a proverbial seat at the table with the rest of the team. Once they are granted informal acceptance, the new person feels like part of the team.
Is that all we have to do to achieve inclusion safety? Make someone feel welcome on their first day?
Nurture Inclusion Every Day
Inclusion safety isn’t one and done. It is renewed (or withdrawn) through repeat actions that indicate the level of acceptance.
Imagine a kid who plays on a football team but then gets hurt. In one scenario they become neglected and unwelcome. No longer able to contribute to the team, they are deemed unworthy and are slowly excluded in ways large and small. The coach doesn’t bring them into the huddle at practice. The team doesn’t invite them out for burgers after the game.
In the second scenario, the opposite happens. They’re out there yelling with the team as they close out practice. They’re on the sidelines during the game talking to the coaches. They’re eating lunch with the team just like they did before.
The contrasting scenarios show how inclusion safety can be nurtured or withdrawn. It highlights that inclusion is an action.
I think it’s really helpful to highlight this for inclusion in a romantic relationship. Being included in a romantic relationship - love - is also an act. To feel love, you have to give love. You have reinforce the relationship through acts of kindness and care.
“…inclusion safety is dynamic and perishable. It must be replenished every day. Particularly in marriage, respect must be translated into acts of kindness, service, and sacrifice. Without a consistent investment in gestures of respect, the relationship will wither from neglect.”
At work, how could you nurture inclusion on your team? How can you make people feel welcome and included every day?
If you’re on Zoom a lot like I am, what does it look like when people join the call? Do you welcome people in and say hello, or do you ignore their presence until you have a question. One of those behaviors pushes the sense of inclusion higher, the other begins to drive connection down.
Inclusion Safety is a Spectrum
Not only is inclusion safety not a one time act - it’s also not binary. You don’t have all of it or none of it. There are shades of gray in between. Every interaction can move you higher or lower on the scale.
“Psychological safety is a spectrum; it’s not whether you have it, but how much. I use the metaphor of climbing a ladder. Promoting psychological safety requires moving from one rung to the next. We must strive to reach the highest possible level.”
Actions, both large and small, have an effect on the sensation of inclusion safety and can move you up a rung, or down a rung.
As someone with food allergies, I see how this plays out with food.
For example, I’ve been the one sipping water while the team is having pizza. Or, I’ll watch people with more restrictive diets seated with an empty plate while the rest of the team has their meal.
Having three young kids I also notice this on the birthday party circuit. There are kids with allergies who go to a party and they can’t have the food or cake. They sit there, head on a swivel, watching everything get passed around, knowing they can’t eat.
It breaks my heart!
It’s hard to feel like part of the crew when you can’t eat with the crew.
When it’s my turn to bake, I’m intentional about food inclusion. You should see how bright the kids’ faces are when they see they can eat the same thing as everyone else!
Everyone in the crew gets to eat dessert. But why no forks?!
I’m not unique in considering food allergies; there are plenty of folks that do!
I’m just highlighting how you can see the spectrum of inclusion safety at work; some actions make people feel more included, some actions make them feel more excluded. Actions have a powerful effect on people in both directions.
Call to Action
Time to get to work!
You can get started immediately with improving acts of psychological safety!
If you’re reading this at work, practice during your next meeting. What could you do to indicate more inclusion safety to meeting attendees? Watch people around the office or virtual office. Can you see anyone who is isolated? Help to bring them in.
If you’re at home, what act could you perform for the people you live with? What could you do to make them feel more welcome and included?
Let me know how it goes! What do you notice when you put this into practice? How do you feel? Do you notice a change in those around you? Is there anything confusing or hard about this? Let me know at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz.
Kevin 😁
Thanks for reading! If you loved it, please tell your friends and colleagues to subscribe here: https://kevinnoble.ck.page/
