Welcome to Disagree Better

The internet is flooded with AI-generated tips and surface-level advice (”stay calm”). Disagree Better is not that kind of publication. I write long-form essays with evidence-based approaches and field-tested ideas that help you decipher what’s happening and discern your best route forward.

I’m Tammy Lenski and I work with conflict…on purpose.

While I was donating blood years ago, a Red Cross nurse placed her hand on my forehead as though to take my temperature and said, Wait. You deal with conflict for a living? Honey, that is just weird.

Her reaction says a lot about what we tend to think of conflict: a pain to avoid or suffer through. We don’t like how conflict makes us feel. The way it makes us look to others. The time and energy it consumes. The way it keeps us stuck or alienates us from people who are vital to us at work and home.

But conflict has value: Friction can spark fresh insights and ideas. A clash of ideas can prompt better solutions and higher-caliber decisions. Debate helps us get clearer on our thinking and see things from other perspectives. Conflict can even strengthen our relationships (yes, there’s research on this).

So, how do we avoid the harmful parts of conflict without suppressing disagreement, dissent, and debate? That’s what Disagree Better is all about. Here are a few articles that will give you a taste of my work and thinking:

Are you sure you're solving the same problem?

Mental models: The invisible maps that shape our arguments

Receiving skills: The overlooked superpower of great communication

How to deal with stonewalling

Discover what you're really fighting about

A way to identify a conflict's primary drivers

A little more about me

I’ve been helping people disagree better for over 30 years as a mediator, conflict resolution teacher, speaker, and author. I’ve taught conflict resolution in four U.S. graduate programs and co-founded the world’s first master’s degree in mediation at Woodbury Institute. My doctorate is in education, and my dissertation work explored influences on behavior. I started my newsletter in 1999, moved it online to my website in 2002, and moved it here to Substack in 2024. If you’re keen on more, you’ll find my formal bio here.

When I’m not working, I’m usually on a hiking trail, in the dog agility ring, or in the garden. My husband and I have been together for over 35 years, with occasional outbreaks of bickering.