Three books about how to disagree better and/or how to engage in conflict more effectively are presented below.
I. How to Disagree Better by Julia Minson, PhD (2026)
Brand new to the market. “Through original research and case studies, How to Disagree Better will show you why traditional persuasion strategies don’t work as well as you think they do, how you can bridge division and reach better outcomes simply by utilizing receptiveness strategies, and that disagreeing better is a skill all of us can learn to apply at home, at work, and with our neighbors” (publisher).
Backed by strong research, Minson has created the H.E.A.R. framework in order to show the important trait of “conversational receptiveness.” From an author interview posted in The Power of Us Newsletter:
- H = Hedge your claims, even when you feel very certain about your beliefs. It signals a recognition that there are some cases or some people who might support your opponent’s perspective.
- E = Emphasize agreement. Find some common ground even when you disagree on a particular topic. This does not mean compromising or changing your mind, but rather recognizing that most people in the world can find some broad ideas or values to agree on.
- A = Acknowledge the opposing perspective. Rather than jumping in to your own argument, devote a few seconds to restating the other person’s position to demonstrate that you did indeed hear and understand it.
- R = Reframing to the positive. Avoid negative and contradictory words, such as “no,” “won’t” or “do not.” At the same time, increase your use of positive words to change the tone of the conversation.
Adam Grant: “We don’t need to disagree less—we need to argue more respectfully, and this book reveals how. Drawing on her extensive knowledge of the science and practice of constructive disagreement, Julia Minson offers lessons for fighting well that are both timely and timeless.”
II. Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes by Ian Leslie (2021)
Why is conflict so hard? Publishers Weekly: “Arguments often go poorly, Leslie writes, due to the high emotions at play: conflict is ‘nearly always entangled with how we feel about each other’.”
Leslie expands on the need to learn how to disagree better in the book introduction: “There’s really no reason we should be good at productive disagreement. We don’t get trained in it or taught it. We find it stressful and unpleasant, because it triggers ancient fight-or-flight responses. For most of human history, we haven’t needed to be good at it, because tradition and culture have resolved or suppressed so many potentially contentious questions. But now we’re in a world where everything is open to question – and we have these devices in our hands that mean we get into arguments with strangers any time we want. It’s quite the combo.”
III. High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley (2021)
Here there’s a distinction made between healthy conflict and high conflict, the latter defined as “what happens when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with an us and a them. In this state, the normal rules of engagement no longer apply. The brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority and, at the same time, more and more mystified by the other side” (publisher’s blurb).
Kirkus Reviews: High conflict is the “kind that leads practitioners to label their foes as evil rather than merely opposed, that causes us to think differently—and not for the better.”
Daniel H. Pink: “At a moment when too many Americans are at each other’s throats, this is the book our country needs.”
