Colorado Animal Welfare Conference Session
Safe To Soar: The Secret Sauce Of Resilient Teams
10:45am-noon • Aug. 21, 2025
City Lights 1
Leadership
Voice is the most important conduit of success in interdependent teams. Where people come together to accomplish meaningful goals, what is unspoken is often the primary barrier to their success. However, in most teams, people believe speaking up is not without risk. Where there’s interpersonal risk to voice, withholding occurs and teams falter. In this session, we’ll explore the science of psychological safety, the shared belief within a team that voice is encouraged, celebrated, and worth it, resulting in maximum performance, resilience, and fulfillment.
It’s Not A 4-Letter Word: Turning Conflicts Into Collaboraton
1:15-2:30pm • Aug. 21, 2025
City Lights 1
Leadership
So often in animal care teams we view conflict as a four letter word – at best, something unprofessional, at worst, something to be wholly avoided. It turns out conflict is, more often than not, a golden opportunity to strengthen connection, learn and grow, and improve efficiency and performance. In this session we’ll learn the role relational maintenance plays in reducing conflict avoidance and explore some evidence-based tools for turning conflict into the collaborative opportunity it can (and should) be in healthy workplaces.
Josh Vaisman
Josh Vaisman believes all animal welfare professionals deserve to feel fulfilled and energized in their work, each and every day. Through his company, Flourish Veterinary Consulting, he combines more than 25 years of veterinary experience, a master’s in applied positive psychology and coaching psychology, education in positive leadership and positive organizational scholarship, and a passion for guiding leaders to cultivate workplaces in which people thrive. He’s also the author of the book, “Lead to Thrive: The Science of Crafting a Positive Veterinary Culture“.
He has taught the art of practicing positive leadership at hundreds of organizations, conferences, and events. To further his mission of empowering veterinary leaders with practical guidance, in 2024 he began pursuing graduate education in conflict management and applied positive communication at the University of Arkansas – Little Rock.
When he’s not cultivating ways to elevate the veterinary community, Vaisman spends his time with his wife, Greta, and their many creatures in Firestone, Colorado. To fill his bucket, he’s a soccer-playing, reef-keeping, cookie-eating, beekeeper.