40. Disclosure Culture in Veterinary Teams - with Alex Harrison

In this episode of the Vet Mind Works podcast, host Petra Agthe is joined by Alex Harrison, founder of Vetquity and one of the first profoundly deaf veterinary graduates in Australia, to explore a dimension of psychological safety that rarely gets airtime: disclosure.

Alex introduces the concept of disclosure culture — shifting the question from "why won't people speak up?" to "what is it about our systems, leadership, and everyday habits that makes it unsafe for people to share what's going on?" It's a reframe that moves the responsibility for inclusion from the individual to the organisation.

This conversation covers:

• The scale of the issue
• Why disclosure culture matters for retention
• How disclosure culture can be seen as the "ultimate manifestation" of psychological safety 
• The disclosure paradox
• The difference between partial and graded disclosure
• The importance of confidentiality and control
• Why a healthy disclosure culture also applies to leaders 
• The significant difference between visible vs. invisible disabilities in regard to disclosure culture
• The importance of trauma-informed disclosure
• Why strengths-based language matters
• The business case for disclosure culture

Ready to find out more about how to create safer work environments where people can truly thrive and fully contribute with their strengths? Then listen in or read the transcript and join our conversation! 

Where to find out more about Alex Harrison and his work:

• Vetquity: https://www.vetquity.com.au toolkits on disclosure safety, accessibility, inclusive hiring, policy redesign, and inclusive surveys
• Blogpost on Disclosure Culture on Vetquity: Why So Many Vets Hide: The Blind Spot in Veterinary Culture — Vetquity
• Follow Alex Harrison on LinkedIn

Join the conversation:

What resonated with you in this episode? Have you experienced disclosure — as the person sharing, or as the one receiving it? We'd love to hear your reflections. Share, rate, and send us your thoughts and suggestions for future guests and topics.

This podcast is in partnership with the Veterinary Information Network (VIN). More about VIN here.

We value your feedback! Please email us your thoughts, ideas and suggestions to vetmindworks@gmail.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook

Want to find out more about our host? Follow to Petra on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/petra-agthe-562bb65b

Credits: 
Music- Deep Ambience by Coma-Media, Pixabay; Images for Artwork- OpenClipart-Vectors, Pixabay

This podcast is in partnership with the Veterinary Information Network (VIN). More about VIN here.

We value your feedback! Please email us your thoughts, ideas and suggestions to vetmindworks@gmail.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook

Want to find out more about our hosts ? Follow on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/petra-agthe-562bb65b

https://www.linkedin.com/in/clive-elwood-b7aba216/

Credits: 
Music- Deep Ambience by Coma-Media, Pixabay; Images for Artwork- OpenClipart-Vectors, Pixabay

Transcript

Petra Agthe: This is the Vet Mind Works podcast, a podcast for everyone in the veterinary profession who is interested in how our minds work and how to work with our minds. Our mission is to share ideas, methods, and skills, enabling us to find better ways of working and living. The content of this podcast is entirely based on our personal experiences and opinions, and does not represent the opinions of our employers or companies we work for. Podcast episodes may contain descriptions of difficult life situations and references to mental health challenges. We strive to ensure that all our published content is correct. However, we cannot accept responsibility for any issues that may arise from the practical application of the contents of this podcast.

Petra Agthe: Hello, and welcome back to the Vet Mind Works podcast. I am your host, Petra Agthe, and I would like to thank you for tuning in today. Before we start, I would like to make a couple of announcement. One is that this is an anniversary episode – the Vet Mind Works podcast has been going for four years and this marks our 40th episode! This is no small thing and an opportunity to say a heartfelt Thank You for listening and joining the conversation. The other announcement is that we now offer transcripts for all our episodes. That applies to our last episode with Stijn Niessen, and also to this episode and to all our future episodes too. 

Now to this conversation: We talk a lot on this podcast about psychological safety and communication, but today I want to explore a dimension of psychological safety that I think doesn't get nearly enough attention in our profession and that has to do with disclosure. Specifically, it has to do with what happens when we choose to share something deeply personal about ourselves: a disability, a chronic illness, neurodivergence, or another part of our identity with the people that we work with. 

My guest today is Alex Harrison, who was amongst the first profoundly deaf veterinary graduates in Australia 25 years ago. I think what struck me most in this conversation is a simple but quite uncomfortable statistic. In Australia, nearly 40% of veterinarians identify as having a disability, chronic illness, or being neurodivergent. And yet, as you will hear, only a tiny fraction of that number only ever discloses this formally. That gap tells us something important, not only about individuals and their willingness to speak up, but about workplaces and cultures that we have built and whether or not people feel actually safe to be honest about themselves in them. So, this isn't an abstract or feel-good conversation. To me, it sits right at the heart of the retention challenges that so many of us are grappling with in the profession. What I really loved about my conversation with Alex is that he doesn't just describe the problem. He gives us a genuine, different way of thinking about it. Instead of asking why won't people just speak up, he flipped the question entirely. What is it about our systems, our leadership, our everyday habits that makes it unsafe for people to share what is going on in the first place and be themselves? So, I've learned a lot in this conversation, and I hope that you will do the same. 

Just to let you know a little bit more about Alex Harrison: Alex is an Australian small animal veterinarian and the founder of Vetquity, a consultancy dedicated to embedding access, equity and psychological safety in veterinary workplaces. Over his career, he has worked in academia, corporate practice, and as a practice owner, stepping away after 10 years due to burnout. Profoundly deaf and shaped by more than two decades of navigating the profession's unwritten rules. Alex is the 2025 recipient of the Australian Veterinary Association's President's Award for his thought leadership in systemic inclusion. He also is on the executive committee of the Veterinary Kaleidoscope, an advocacy body that advocates for veterinarians and nurses with disability, neurodivergence, LGBTQIA+, culturally marginalized, and Indigenous backgrounds. Today, he is committed to creating a more humane, inclusive profession where everyone belongs. And just before we dive into the conversation, hear a little bit more information about our partners, VIN Europe.

Petra Agthe: This podcast is supported by VIN Europe. Since 1991, the Veterinary Information Network has been helping colleagues with providing all the knowledge you need for your next case, instant access to drug formularies, over 260 veterinary specialists in every specialty imaginable, weekly rounds, CPD and an own virtual veterinary internship program, you name it, VIN has got it. Are you ready to join this independent community of nearly 100,000 colleagues? VIN is and always will be independent for vets by vets. Free trial memberships are available on vin.com, and if you're a student, VIN is absolutely free.

Petra Agthe: So, it's a great pleasure for me to welcome Alex Harrison, who kindly agreed to join us on the MindWorks podcast, and yeah, we had to align time zones and, all sorts of things, but here he is, so thank you very much for making time, Alex.

Alex Harrison: Yeah, thanks for having me, Petra. I'm looking forward to having a chat about all things disclosure, disability, and neurodivergence. 

Petra Agthe: We have a lot to cover, and I've been following your work for quite some time. It's been really inspiring. One of the things that made me reach out for getting you on as a guest was your approach to the discussion of inclusion, and you introduced the concept of disclosure culture, which for me was a new concept and that intrigued me immensely. So, I wanted to really focus the discussion today around the notion of disclosure culture. And first of all, I would like to ask you what the term disclosure and disclosure culture means to you?

Alex Harrison: Disclosure culture, I think in veterinary medicine, most people might think about medication errors and disclosing that, but for me, it has a very different meaning. My background is that I'm a profoundly deaf vet and I was one of the very first in Australia to graduate 25 years ago. I have my own consultancy which looks at inclusion work in veterinary medicine, and trying to find ways of retaining and keeping people in the profession. 

So, a bit of background: In Australia, we did a survey where we found that 38% of veterinarians in Australia identified as having disability or neurodivergence or chronic illness. I might surprise a lot of people in the profession because they weren't expecting the numbers to be that high. It didn't surprise me because of the number of conversations I've had with a lot of people, and it does intuitively make sense that the veterinary profession should have prevalence that might be somewhat similar to the general population. But the problem we have is that a lot of people in our profession are suffering in silence. And then the second thing that happened was there was a study done in the UK by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, where they asked vets and vet nurses to identify if they were in the group that were planning to leave within the next five years, what were their top reasons for leaving? And one in four vets and nearly one in three veterinary nurses were planning to leave because of lack of reasonable adjustments or accommodations. And I understand that's been a big thing for you in the UK. You've had the reasonable adjustments campaign in the UK with the Royal College. But a lot of it comes back to me realising that in veterinary medicine, we don't have good culture around disclosure. It is very passive, and people expect people to speak up and say that they have got these needs. Or they say ‘my door is always open.’ And I'm possibly the first person in veterinary medicine to talk about the culture. In fact, in other professions, it's only fragments of it. Even in psychology or medicine, it's only fragments of it. It's about moving from an individual lens to flipping that around.

 Instead of asking why aren't people disclosing their needs, it's about flipping the question around to ask them what is it about our workplace, what is it about our culture, and what is it about our systems make it unsafe for people to share? And that is what I mean by the disclosure culture. The basic mindset that we can actually create the conditions to allow people to share what their needs are.

Petra Agthe: Thank you, thank you. There is a lot in there, a lot in there. So, let me perhaps just briefly recap my understanding, just to make sure that I'm getting this right. Thank you for sharing your background as well. So, you qualified a while ago, 25 years ago and similar to me, actually. And it sounds like you had a well, you obviously stayed in the profession and it wasn't always easy by the sounds of it. So you shared that you live with profound deafness and your observation that many people suffer in silence in the profession. You mentioned two things that you noticed that was… or works that have been done. One in Australia, where it was discovered that a high proportion of people in the veterinary profession either live with disabilities or are neurodivergent or have other needs for other reasons and then work from the RCVS in the UK that a high proportion of people are intending to leave the profession because there, um, there's a failure to adjust workplaces that meets their needs, and then you were then explaining that with a disclosure culture, what we're doing is that we're shifting the onus away from the individual, and actually creating a wider organizational culture or professional culture of removing the barriers, I guess, and making inclusion the norm rather than relying on people sharing what they need, and relying on them to overcome the discomfort, I suppose, also, which we might need to discuss later. And what struck me, and that's what struck me before as well, is how there is very clearly an association with psychological safety, which is one of the things that I'm very interested in. Because an environment where we feel psychologically safe, we feel comfortable enough, we feel safe enough to share our internal experiences, and that might relate to something at work. It might also relate, I would argue to something that includes our needs to perform the work. Would that be your understanding as well?

Alex Harrison: Absolutely. Actually, I think, though, that with psychological safety, disclosure culture, for me, could be the ultimate manifestation of that. Because psychological safety, as we probably frame it, might be, saying I feel safe enough to say that this anesthetic protocol doesn't work. I feel safe enough to say that we need to change how we handle our diabetic patients. I feel safe enough to say that how we handle certain clients that are aggressive, or interpersonal relationships might not be working. What's very different, though, about a deep need, like a disability, or neurodivergence, or chronic illness or sexuality, or menopause, is that once they're out, then they're not usually able to be put back into the bottle. And the problem then becomes, it's what people do with that part of their identity. And it can be weaponized. And that is what I mean by disclosure culture. Sometimes it is actually weaponized in some workplaces, and it results in people undergoing a performance review, or they may be pushed out of the workforce or the job. In other cases, they may be given lesser duties, and they're assumed to be incompetent. On the other hand, we can have healthy disclosure culture. We say, okay, that's your need, and I'm honouring the fact that you're trusting me with something, and I'm making sure that I'm not meeting that with awkwardness. I'm not meeting that with silence or passive aggressiveness, and so on. So, the reality is that I think a lot of people don't always realise that there's many elements to the disclosure. It doesn't have to be a full disclosure. It can be a partial disclosure. They might test the waters. They might need something, but they might not tell you why or the diagnosis behind that. They might also tell you, and I've seen this a lot in fact, this is a point that was actually backed up by another study done by the Royal College, I think, with the Veterinary Chronic Illness Society. It was a great document, 136 pages, I think, but one of the things that stuck in my head from that study was that there were a number of vets who had multiple conditions. It was very common to have two or three conditions, maybe four, and that was actually far higher than one single one that, very often people will test what you do with that bit of information. And I've actually had colleagues who declared they might have had a migraine, and wanted to see what their manager or employer was going to do with that. And then how they handled that would be the primary factor in the decision to reveal something bigger and more important. 

So there's lots of ways it can play out. It can either be healthy or unhealthy. And I guess I'm coming from a systems point of view because I would default as an employer or manager, and I'll say this because I've been a practice owner for 10 years, the default option is that we say: ‘tell us what your needs are’ or ‘my door is always open’. So that is very passive. And as you said, it puts all the onus of the discomfort on the person who has the most to lose. 

Petra Agthe: Yeah, thank you. So, from what you shared, what really stood out was that while with psychological safety, sharing something that we observe or sharing our perspective, or even sharing something that we need, would be something temporary, whereas if we share something about our identity, something that is really closely associated with us as a person, it is something that cannot be put back. So, it is disclosed, and I absolutely can feel that difference, because it is… it stays out, and the question is what happens with that information, and ultimately, it is an act of vulnerability to disclose and therefore what you said this sort of graded or gradual disclosure perhaps also is something that makes sense, because ultimately it comes down to trust, and trust, because there will always be a degree of uncertainty with any disclosure. The question is, how will this be handled? Not only tomorrow, but…in a month, in a year, in 10 years, what's happening with this?

Alex Harrison: Not always. Sometimes, though, there can be a lot of uncertainty as to how the disclosure might be handled. And I don't think that a lot of people realize that individuals who might want to disclose something have been watching how other people in the organization might be treated and how things are handled. They don't realize that lots of conversations tend to happen in private and in the background. And these are the silent conversations that happen at conferences. They happen between people in chat groups. How was that handled and so on -that happens a lot. So, it is not necessarily that people don’t know how things are being handled. They may actually have some really clear indicators of whether a workplace might be healthy or not, based on, not necessarily their past experiences but from what they would have heard from others.

Petra Agthe: Yes, that makes a lot of sense, absolutely. And as you said before, and I've also experienced having been in the profession for quite a while we traditionally, at least historically, are not really a disclosure culture, I would… I would argue. I sometimes refer to veterinary culture historically has a bit of a culture of invulnerability, so yeah, it's… it's very interesting. So thank you, for what you have shared. Now, the question is, now that we have identified this as an issue, and, obviously retention is a big issue, retention is one of the key things, really that we want to achieve…many people want to achieve. And so, if we identify that, as a… apart from the fact that it's…the right thing to do in terms of from a humanities perspective, apart from that, so if disclosure is the path that leads us there, what can we do? So, if we think about ways to disclose safely and to handle disclosure constructively, what, could help individuals and organisations?

Alex Harrison: I think there are different pathways, and there is certainly lots of information about how individuals can prepare for a disclosure. You can find those. And essentially, there are other documents available around coaching people how to make a disclosure. Where there don't seem to be resources around up until now - Vetquity has created a toolkit to help create healthy disclosure the culture and that the other part of the equation.

 It's about doing several things, there's several things that we can do. The first one is that we can normalize adjustments and accommodations. We don't treat them as special favours. If we say that requesting captions in a meeting is a special favour, if we say that if someone with ADHD gets a quiet space and schedule to catch up on some tasks, and recalibrate in between appointments - and those kind of things - is a special favour, we create a culture of resentment for other employees.

Also, this gets picked up by staff who need to disclose something, and they become reluctant to disclose due to stigma. So what we have to do is we have to extend that to other groups like menopause, caring responsibilities, and so on. And people worry that if we do this, that we are going to open the flood gates, but you actually do it in a way that normalizes it, in a way that helps people to thrive and to do well. In Australia, we have some new psychosocial hazard legislation coming in, which I'm not sure if you have in the UK, but it specifically says that you have to put reasonable steps in place to protect the psychological well-being of your staff. That is one thing we can do. 

The second thing we have to remember is the principle that disclosure is still voluntary. There is no requirement for someone to disclose, and they don't have to disclose their condition. They can disclose their needs, and you may simply have to accept that that may be all they might be giving you. That is what we call a partial disclosure, and that is okay. The important thing is that they are able to get the accommodation or adjustment that they need without necessarily giving the diagnosis. Sometimes the diagnosis is helpful for us to understand. But can also be used to pathologise as well, and that can be harmful.

The third thing is to recognize that very often people think that when we disclose that everyone can be told what is going on. You need to be very clear and to have boundaries as to what is done with that information, and who it is shared with. So, for example, if you have an invisible disability, you might only want certain people in the workplace to know. You don't necessarily want the whole team to know. And even if they say, "I'm willing for XYZ or these people to know," they still have the right to change their mind. So it is a very important principle. 

The other one is that they need to have clarity as to what is done with that information, and sometimes there's not a lot of clarity that is given with the information, either. It's actually really quite interesting, because I don't think people recognize that even the dynamics around disclosure can be quite nuanced. For example, visible versus invisible disability - 80% of disability is invisible. Yeah, so clarity around information is really, really important, and sometimes it's not made clear to people beforehand what might be done with the information.

A very good example of this is with the veterinary surgeon’s boards, for example. In Australia, it's a mandatory requirement, and I think the UK is the same, but it's required that disability has to be disclosed to the Veterinary Surgeons Board, if it considered to be detrimental.

What is never clear from the registration form is what is done with that information. I'm of the view -and it's a whole different discussion - but I'm of the view that that should really be the kind of thing that should only be required at the time of a complaint being made and during the process of discovery. It should not be something that has to be mandatory right from the get-go.

This actually leads me into another context. As I have identified, 38% of Australians in Australia identify as having disability, chronic illness, or neurodivergence. Yet, less than 1% will report that to the Veterinary Surgeons Board. Ostensibly, they will argue that that needs to be reported to protect the public, but it does not protect the public if people are supressing and hiding that and not able to seek support. So, is this about surveillance, or is this about providing support? Is it about potentially punishing you and weaponizing it if a complaint is made against you, or is it about a way to provide support and make sure that you are allowed to thrive?

And that is a very, very classic example. The other thing that's really interesting is there was another study that was done - again in the UK. I think it was done at the Royal Veterinary College. And I found, I forgot what year it was, but 3.5% of students disclosed that they had some form of disability, including neurodivergence. When the culture was changed to be inclusive and supportive the disclosure rate shot up to 20%. It went up five to six fold. So when you bring together all the different data points, you actually realise that we don’t talk about it, but we do have some very unhealthy disclosure cultures in veterinary medicine.

Petra Agthe: Yeah, gosh, so thank you. Thank you for sharing. There is a lot then that can be done and that really in organisations can help practically help with that retention and with that inclusion of work colleagues. So just a quick recap again just to get it straight in my head and just to clarify in case I got anything wrong. So, first of all from what you shared, it's about normalising adjustments and not making this anything special, but as something that is helpful and important for different people and not only for distinct categories and that it might actually then benefit everybody and by normalizing it, it lowers the threshold, it lowers the barrier to and that's probably one of the effects that you that played into the change in the figures as well. I suppose that you were talking about in last point. Then, the important principle that disclosure needs to be voluntary, and it can be partial, it can be just around needs, rather than a specific condition, which perhaps then makes… again, it lowers the barrier, perhaps, from a… from an individual's point of view, I can see how that might make me more likely to disclose something. And again, also, if that is accepted across the entire organization, it sets the tone, doesn't it? It then makes it very, very explicit.

Then the confidentiality point is really important, that just because I'm choosing to disclose something to one person doesn't mean that it's okay to be disclosed to everyone, particularly with invisible disabilities that you were mentioning.

Then… we have the importance of clarity and transparency about what happens with that information and that really also led us to… What you then discussed, how there is a big discrepancy between the figures that we see in statistics, and that the that the proportion of people who are choosing to disclose will… depend on the purpose of why questions are asked, and in which context questions are asked, I… I guess, and… and the… and the culture in which the questions are asked. Is that about a correct representation of…

Alex Harrison: I think you have perfectly encapsulated in that recap how a healthy disclosure culture is almost the perfect epitome of psychological safety. And I think if you can nail disclosure culture then you pretty much almost can nail psychological safety as a whole sort of concept. It is actually not that hard; it's actually really easy to do when you follow some basic principles. I think it really goes back to the fact that when someone shares that with you, if you meet that with silence or awkwardness it really…but they trust you in that moment; and how you handle that really can make or break careers.

I really think that it is a skill that really needs to be learned by leaders. And I have really not heard anyone talk about healthy disclosure culture at all in veterinary medicine. I firmly believe that it could possibly be one of the most probably one of the biggest reforms of a generation.

Petra Agthe: I would agree with you. I like the way how you talk about reforms. It includes the notion, to me at least, of intention and doing something deliberately and changing the system in a way that enables meaningful change. Again, rather than asking individuals to change and adapt, it is creating  an environment where that adaptation is normalized, welcomed, and…constructively incorporated, I suppose.

I do agree and I also see this parallel almost all that disclosure if we do disclosure well, there's probably nothing more powerful to build psychological safety, actually, to build trust and building psychological safety forward because if I if I choose to share something with someone and they handle that information with respect constructively and work with me together for mutual benefit I suppose ultimately because if I'm able to stay in a job if I am able to contribute to the organisation and if that is done well, I can see how that actually creates a very loyal, a very engaged team member, really, and because it is also mutual, I guess it can create a real glue in an organization if done well.

Alex Harrison: There is actually a lot of data that shows that people who have disability or neurodivergence or chronic illness, when they are able to disclose safely and it is not weaponised against them, there is actually studies that show that their loyalty increases. So it is not an abstract concept, it's actually been proven, it's actually been shown.

I think the important thing to remember with healthy disclosure culture is that it is simply a means to an end. And the end is ideally to get adjustments and accommodations that help the person thrive and reduce their cognitive load. And that cognitive load is reduced because they are not masking, they are not having to work harder on workarounds, they are not encountering friction in many parts of the process. I think it is important I stop here for a sec, because I will probably go on a little side track.

And I will probably say some people who are able-bodied or neurotypical might be defaulting to thinking well, if people are experiencing friction, maybe they don't belong in the profession. That is not the case at all. It is the case that the system may not work for those people. And we have to shift from deficits-based language to strengths-based language. So, for example, myself, I might find myself going, oh, have I picked up a murmur or not? A lot of time I do. But if I get a colleague to have a listen, and the way my team works is that they will go, yes, I think we can hear a murmur  too. And the funny thing is, I end up being the one doing the cardiac ultrasound then. But that is the whole idea of strength -based language, and it all is interwoven.

But if we combine the disclosure culture that is healthy with reasonable adjustments and accommodations that allow people to thrive, you are creating the conditions to retain and keep people. I find it staggering that we can spend millions of dollars or pounds or whatever currency we want to talk about on training professionals, and we can lose them after a few years, simply because we don't want to change the way that we are thinking, simply because we are so terrified that if someone is disclosing to us, we don't know what to do with it, and it opened up a Pandora's Box of risk. The riskiest thing that you can do is to not help them to thrive. So, why wouldn't you do it? The default for a lot of people is - I am given this information, and I am going to stuff it up. Well, the first thing you have to remember is you are going to get it wrong sometimes, and that's okay. You are going to stuff it up, and you are going to offend somebody at some point. 

The important thing is that we need to lead with curiosity and not defensiveness. And I think that is where a lot of these kind of things get really stuck. And it creates what I call the disclosure paradox, where employers don't know what to do with disclosure. And employees won’t disclose because they are worried they worry that they won't be received as well, and that it is an impasse. And that is what sort of the disclosure culture is about, is trying to get past that paradox and that catch 22, so that we can create a systems way of thinking, instead of putting it all on the individual.

Petra Agthe: You made me think a lot here. You made me think a lot. I, what you mentioned about that disclosure is obviously, one thing, but what we really need are the reasonable adjustments, make me think that how if we just leave it at disclosure, it probably isn't healthy, because what's the point in sharing something if nothing changes? Yes, sometimes it can help to create a little bit of understanding, but ultimately, if somebody who really requires a low noise environment, if I find it difficult to concentrate when there is lots going on, in terms of noise in the background, and I'm not able to, to work in… in that way, if nothing is done about it…well, it doesn't benefit anybody, and then… the… the team or the organization cannot benefit from my strengths, because I might actually be really good at… at my work, and I might have skills that nobody else has in the team.

And so, I think the importance to recognise that reasonable… and we are talking about reasonable adjustments, which actually often don't cost that much, and particularly for the benefits that they then bring, both in terms of I guess, what we mentioned, the buy-in and the loyalty of employees, as well as then their productivity, because they are able to contribute to the team better. So, you mentioned the strengths-based approach, which is really important, recognizing that everybody has got something to bring, and I think we are recognizing that more and more, so not look at it not from a deficit point of view, but actually what have these individuals to bring, and all of us to bring, I suppose.

And then you also mentioned the fact that we will get things wrong, and I think that is often, sometimes, that plays into this, because we don't like discomfort, we as vets generally tend to be more on the perfectionism… perfectionistic side of the spectrum, and that includes probably social interactions, so we like to get things “right” in, sort of inverted commas, and so, perhaps accepting that we will grapple with this, and it will not always be easy. And that is why… one of the things that I have learned really, the hard way is to actually have conversations before the conversation. To say that, “well, actually it's really important for me that you can bring things to me that are important to you; that you let me know what you need in order to do your job well. And… just to let you know, I haven't had many of these conversations, so if in any of our conversations there is something that doesn't land well, please let me know. And so, I think having this ‘talking about talking’, as I sometimes call it, can be just so helpful to frame all further conversations. 

And then you also mentioned the disclosure paradox. Sorry, I'm going on a little bit of a… of a wrap-up here! The disclosure paradox that sometimes we end up in a situation where

employees or team members want to share, but the organization doesn't actually know what to do with that, and then we are getting, sort of, a bit stuck. So… so thank you. I… yeah, I went on a bit of a ramble, but for me, I always find it really important for me, it's just an important thing to make sure that my understanding is correct, but also to always give the guests another opportunity to listen back and in case something else comes up for you.

Alex Harrison: It is a very important habit to do that we all can do. It's the clarifying thing that you should have done. And it's a wonderful way to make sure that you understood the other person, what the other person is trying to say. Going back briefly, you touched upon the fact that we don't always get it right, and that we fail, but we talk about positive failure, that, failure can be positive, and we can learn from that. And I think, one of the things that we almost… I like to talk about the hidden curriculum a lot, because it is whole other conversation. 

But the hidden curriculum happens at vet school quite a bit, and all these narratives that we learn, one body, one mind, one pace, um, or maybe the omnicompetent veterinarian that has to be able to do everything, that's another one.

One of those, narratives is really around this idea that as a clinician we have to know all the answers. When it comes to human beings, we can't possibly know all the answers, so it's okay to say. ”Thank you for telling me this. I really appreciate it, and I don't know right now. Um, I'd like to go away and learn more about this.” Or “I'd like to learn from you about this.” And this is the concept of cultural humility. We don't do this well. We talk about cultural competence, but we think that culture is something to be mastered.

Cultural humility means that we can always learn, but it doesn't just apply to race or ethnic minorities. It also applies to neurodivergence or disability or chronic illness or the queer community. There is so much of a need for cultural humility in our profession that, okay, I don't know about that, and I'm willing to learn, and I also like to talk a lot about unlearning. So, the most important part of learning is unlearn those narratives and those kind of things. They are all incredibly related. Um, yeah, I could talk for hours about those.

Petra Agthe: Yes, yes, I would love to have another opportunity to dig into some of those things because they are things that I am spending a lot of time thinking about as well, so… so thank you for making the connection. I think there's a lot of interconnected, um, concepts, and they all sort of tie into each other in a way. So yes, so what you said, really, I found hugely fascinating. In terms of how disclosure safety looks like, I think you shared already a lot of things. I wonder whether you also have some tips in terms of specific tools or you shared the cultural humility which is important in order to increase the safety in disclosure. Is there anything else, any other tools coming to mind, or any other phrases that we might use that may help.

Alex Harrison: Not too much at all, but definitely one tip. And this goes back to the dynamics of disclosure. A lot of people don't realize that the more senior a role is, the more senior a position is, the less likely they are to disclose. What that tells us is that within an organization, they might think they have got healthy disclosure culture, because most of their employees feel safe doing so. But if it is not happening at the leadership level or the boardroom, they don't truly have healthy disclosure culture. So, a lot of that means that you are having a situation where you are saying it is okay for people to share these things about them and they won't be penalised for that. But if you don't have that philosophy, it's really playing out in your life at the board level, then you've still got a problem there, and I think that sometimes a lot of leaders don't always realize that there is a problem there. And I'm fascinated, constantly struck by the number of veterinary leaders who come up to me and say I have got this condition or I have got this issue and I haven't told anyone. And again it goes back to that whole concept of will it be weaponised against them? It might not be weaponised in most of the levels within the organisation, but at the top level it can and it could be. That is really important. And I think that is a really important thing for leaders to be mindful of. Are you seeing disclosure in the leaders around you? Because if you are not, you probably have a problem. And you can't reasonably expect your employees to feel safe to disclosing if they are not seeing it being modelled at the upper levels. The other problem is that then leads into a lack of representation and visibility, which creates a whole bunch of other issues as well. So that is something to be important to be aware of.

The other thing that happens is that the dynamics with the disclosure between visible and invisible disability are actually very different. So, for example, if I go to a job interview as somebody with a visible invisibility, I have no choice but to disclose. I can't hide that. I don't have the luxury of being able to hide that. That works for me and against me. It means that the burden of having to disclose is removed from me. It also means that a lot of employers in the past would not even consider me. The other thing that would happen is that it became easier to ask for accommodations and adjustments, because everybody knew where they were.

 When you have an invisible disability, you can get through the interview not having to disclose. And although you are able to get past interview stage in a lot more workplaces, it is actually harder to be believed and therefore harder to get those accommodations and adjustments. And I think it is very important for veterinary leaders to be aware that the dynamic can be very different around those two different groups.

Petra Agthe: Yeah…hm. It makes me think a lot. Yes, again, there is, the parallel, what you mentioned, with disclosure and the hierarchical layers in organizations. Again, there is a big…parallel to psychological safety in general, where you've got those power gradients, and it's generally experienced as less safe to speak up against a really strong power gradient, so I think that is just intrinsic human nature to a degree. And it just shows that it is very important to be mindful of that, and also the modeling of… of leaders that you mentioned. And then, again, you mentioned the difference between visible and invisible disabilities, so just being very… acknowledging that there is a difference, and that there is a difference in how these are dealt with, and how they may be disclosed. That is important. Thank you.

Oh, I am learning a lot in this episode. Thank you very much, Alex. That is wonderful. And that is what I love about being a podcast host. I am learning so much from every single guest. That is a brilliant, brilliant place to be in.

 So, just slowly moving towards the end, I would just like to ask a question whether there are any… you already mentioned that there are, some difficulties or pitfalls, but you mentioned a few, some of them that a disclosure may be weaponized, or, we… it might not… there may not be clarity around how that is handled, or, it may not be handled in confidential ways. Are there any other… Difficulties, pitfalls coming to mind, or ways… situations where you find that, disclosure is unhelpful?

Alex Harrison: Absolutely, and I think there is a really important one, I am glad you brought this point up, because there was one… I covered a lot of the possible pitfalls, but there was one particular one that doesn't really get considered by a lot of people who say that, “speak up, you need to disclose”. And they don't realize that the disclosure can be traumatizing, or re-traumatizing. And for a lot of people who have disclosed in the past, there may be trauma around how that previous disclosure was handled. There may be a fear of what is going to happen, a fear that historical patterns are going to play out again.

I think it is really important that we are… I think you have to hold in the back of your mind that, sometimes people are bringing things in that have nothing to do with your organization, had nothing to do with how you have handled it. But there are things that come in with that. And it's very difficult for people to separate that, because it goes… disclosing the part of your identity is so core and central to who you are. That we do have to be mindful that sometimes there can be trauma around that.

Petra Agthe: Yeah, yeah. So, from an organisational perspective, having a trauma-informed lens, or, being… being aware around the… the possibility of… of trauma is important, and it… again, it…it touches on the points of that… Disclosure is…voluntary, not forcing disclosure, and also handling it with respect, and… I suppose a… open… curious and compassionate reception. And welcoming it. Engaging with it in a… in a supportive way, that seems… seems important. And from also, I suppose, from what you were saying, also from the individual's point, important to recognize that, actually. I suppose that awareness of that, disclosure can be associated with trauma. It is also something that individuals sometimes are very acutely aware of, I suppose. But potentially not, and therefore, it's perhaps important for everybody to be aware that these conversations are very sensitive.

Alex Harrison: It is also good to recognize that it can be a wonderful opportunity for healing, too, if they are handled well. And I love that you brought up trauma informed leadership, because that is another passion of mine, and it is so needed in this space. I think that we need it for clients, too, as well. And really, I think we look at a lot at behaviour where often an underlying need has not been met. And, I think I am a parent myself, and since I have become a parent, we start to realize a lot of our colleagues’ behaviour comes from unmet needs. And I think that once we make that cognitive shift a lot of things really do change. 

But back to the trauma. When you hold the fact that disclosure may bring up traumatic memories for people, or in itself can be re-traumatizing, you then understand why partial disclosure can be okay. Then you understand why it doesn't have to be a full disclosure, and why if somebody has given a partial disclosure, it is not being shifty. That is the default.

They are simply trying to make sure that they still have some options if the disclosure is not handled in the way that it should be, because they can only control the disclosure that they give to you. They can't control what you do with it, so they might want to be making sure that they're putting some options in there. And that is why it is very important to recognize that the concept of partial disclosure is a very valid one.

Petra Agthe: Yeah,. That makes… makes a lot of sense, and I think I have, just having worked in this profession for a while, I… also… totally… echo the call for trauma-informed approaches, not only within teams, but also with clients. And I do think, actually, we were talking about, you put out a brilliant blog post on civility in the discussion around civility and, microaggressions, and I thought for a very long time, that the discussion around civility and incivility really also needs to be held with… the trauma-informed… angle as well, because when we look at a lot of the behaviours that can give rise to incivility or behaviours that are perceived as incivil, they can sometimes be patterns that have occurred due to previous traumatization, and therefore, I think it is very important to be aware of that. I can see we need to meet again at some point, and I think that's also an angle which really fascinates me

from a communication point of view, and I kind of started diving into nonviolent communication for that reason, because it also touches on needs, and it touches on the… creating a connection regardless of the situation you are finding yourself in with people sometimes. So, so thank you. Sorry, I digressed, a bit there. You have, sparked a lot of dots in my, in my head. Thank you, Alex.

So…before I, let you go, are there any other bits of information you would like the listeners to know, that I should have asked you and I failed to ask?

Alex Harrison: Well, I think one of the things that comes up is, are there any resources around disclosure culture? In veterinary medicine no. I am pretty much the one that is talking about it, and I think that there is a conceptual leap for a lot of people. But I do have through my consultancy, which is called Vetquity, I do have a toolkit on how to create healthy disclosure culture, and it comes from years of experience and observing the dynamics and talking to lots of people. And I have done a lot of looking to try and find anything like it in other professions. There just isn't, really. There is only fragments of it.

But I have spent a lot of time thinking about how we can improve some of the attrition and retention metrics. I firmly believe that if we can nail or create disclosure culture, it would help attrition and retention rates probably in the order of maybe 7-8%, that is not insignificant. And that would certainly meet the threshold for something that is worthy of consideration for a serious reform initiative.

Petra Agthe: Yeah. I… intuitively, would absolutely buy that figure, at least I think, just by knowing a lot of people who are thinking about leaving, or who have left, even just who may have stayed on in the profession but left clinical work. So I think, there is a huge, huge potential. So, thank you very much for, for adding that. You were mentioning resources, and you said that there is not really much around, but certainly you have put a lot of time and knowledge and experience into developing your consultancy, so we have now arrived at the plug zone of the podcast, so for any interested listener, where can they find you? What are the things that you are offering through Vetquity.

Alex Harrison: So, Vetquity has a website, so Vetquity is spelled V-E-T-Q-U-I-T-Y, a combination of vet and equity. The whole concept was that equality doesn't work as a concept, you really need equity. And so, the whole philosophy behind the equity came about through a lot of, circumstances, but I do a lot of advocacy work with an organization called the Veterinary Kaleidoscope in Australia. Very similar to Affinity Futures in the UK, and it is an umbrella organization that advocates for the different minority demographics together, as opposed to separately. And this is because we realised that 90% of the issues overlap, and a lot of it is structural. And the fundamental philosophy behind Vetquity is that inclusion won't survive on goodwill alone. It requires infrastructure, it has to be embedded in policy, in culture, and so on. So, I actually created a series of toolkits to help those workplaces who then later actually embed this into the, the workplace. Some of the toolkits look at accessibility, so how to make your websites and your workplaces accessible. Others look at the disclosure safety, as we have discussed. Others look at inclusive hiring and recruitment. And then other look at policy redesign and then inclusive surveys and demographics. And that last one is quite important, because if you don't ask the right questions, you are not going to get the right insights. And that actually came out of when we asked the Australian Veterinary Association to include disability, neurodivergent, and chronic illness in the survey, and they found that 38% figure.

In the UK, you have been asking the right questions, probably for the last few years, so you are further ahead than us. But there is still a lot of insights that previously would not have been uncovered 5 years ago, and they are really changing the way the profession is starting to think about a lot of the issues, like burnout and attrition and retention.

So, those are the toolkits that are available on the website. Yes, I've already started to launch it. It's only been going for about 6 months now.

Petra Agthe: Yeah, thank you. Thanks for sharing that, and for anybody interested to find you, I can also recommend you on LinkedIn, because you are often sharing insightful posts and links to the blogs that you have got on the website. And we will put all those links

in the show notes, as well, so that people can find you. So, well, that was a very insightful conversation. Thank you so much again for making time, Alex, and I look forward to meeting again at some point to discuss some of the other alleyways that we didn't manage to explore fully today. So, thank you.

Alex Harrison: Thank you for having me, and I would love to explore those other avenues and pathways with you. Who knows where they will lead!

Petra Agthe: That is wonderful. Thank you so much and have a good day.

Alex Harrison: Okay.

Petra Agthe: So, as always, I have learned a lot in this conversation. And I am left to sit with a lot to reflect on. What stayed with me most was Alex's point that disclosure, once made cannot really be put back. And how much responsibility that places on us, as colleagues and as leaders, in how we receive it, and how we manage that information. And the importance to meet that disclosure with curiosity and with care. I have to say that I have experienced this from both sides as a leader and colleague with people disclosing certain things to me and me disclosing things about myself to others and I know from my own experience how much courage and actually trust that takes. So, I wonder if any of this resonated with you. As mentioned, you can find all about Alex and his work with Vetquity in the show notes, where we have all the links, as usual. Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, make sure you take care of yourself, and you take care of each other.

Petra Agthe: Thank you for listening to the Vet MindWorks podcast. We hope that you enjoyed it and that you found the content helpful. If this is the case, please consider sharing and rating us, as well as providing us with feedback, including suggestions for future topics and guests. This podcast is independent and self-funded, as we see it as our way to give back to and support the profession. Thank you for listening, and see you next time.