How to Disagree Better

Loved this book! Can’t wait for her next one!

Julia Minson's framework is (unfortunately...) all-too-appropriate for our times. I have been following her work for years, and applying her principles in knotty healthcare situations, such as when employees were resistant to vaccine boosters during the Pandemic. The book not only provides new detail on the framework but rich descriptions of how it has evolved and can be applied. Her approach is so much better than avoiding topics. She makes clear that disagreement is one more type of diversity, and we will have richer lives and be more effective by embracing it.

Julia Minson gives us a brilliant, practical step-by-step guide to learn how to disagree better. As she writes in her introduction, ‘By disagreeing more effectively, we can help humanity thrive, yes, but we also have more engaged, honest and productive conversations at work and at home.’ Nothing could be more valuable now at a time of deep fractures in our families, communities, nations and world.

Julia Minson brings genuine research expertise to the subject of disagreement. The science here is rigorous, drawn substantially from her own work, and it never gets in the way of a very readable text.The HEAR framework - hedge your claims, emphasize agreement, acknowledge other perspectives, and reframe to the positive - is simple enough to remember mid-conversation and substantive enough to actually change how you argue.For me, the standout chapter is on signaling learning goals. Expressing an explicit desire to learn, it turns out, lowers the odds of conflict escalation.Highly recommended!

Julia Minson is a brilliant writer and educator. She has honed these ideas in an incredibly challenging environment at Harvard Kennedy School and at an especially difficult and challenging time. We are lucky that she has put this book together for for all of us. Highly recommend.