Yes, it’s been a while. No, I haven’t stopped reading. Here’s the proof: This issue recommends two books about messes.
The first book examines the conflicts that people have with each other, such as arguments within teams and families, and explains why a group that never argues may be in more trouble than one that does. The second looks at the messes we create with information and how we can organize them.
Reading both might change how you approach your next team meeting.
The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict
Priya Parker
Riverhead Books (September 2026)
“When we think conflict is wrong, we limit our ability to face it.”
Priya Parker made her name with The Art of Gathering, a book about why so many meetings and family gatherings go wrong. Her new book asks the obvious follow-up question: what happens when the people you gathered start to disagree?
Parker’s credentials come with a confession. She became a conflict facilitator “not because I am fearless, but because I hate conflict.” (Relatable, right?) Her premise is simple: Good groups fight. Families, teams, boards, friend groups: People change over time, and with that change comes disagreement. (Weddings apparently are a favorite battleground.) Parker wants to teach us how to read a dispute and decide if and what to do about it, including when the only solution is to part ways.
The key skill, in her words, is learning to “hold heat”: Staying with a disagreement long enough for it to become clarifying, instead of rushing to smooth it over or hoping it will go away on its own. (Spoiler: It won’t.)
Holding heat is hard enough in a meeting room. On Slack or Zoom? Good luck. Chats and messaging apps make a fight more difficult to contain. I’ve seen it happen. More than once. That’s why my personal recommendation is to read the chapter “The R(Z)oom Where It Happens.”
3 reasons to read this book
- Permission to disagree: Most people would rather get a root canal during a colonoscopy than face a conflict. Fair. But avoidance and false harmony do more damage than an honest fight (although sometimes staying out of it is the wisest move).
- A framework to remember: Check out Parker’s simple matrix that sorts fights by intensity and by how much they touch the group’s identity.
- Homework included: Team leads will find good advice for tomorrow’s meeting: Start with banter. Practicing disagreement on low-stakes topics (pineapple on pizza, anyone?) makes the high-stakes ones less scary.
3 reasons to skip it
- Written for facilitators: Parker’s advice is meant for groups. Preparing for an awkward conversation with your manager? You’ll need to adapt it yourself.
- Stories first, tips second: The practical takeaways are in there somewhere, but you’ll have to dig for them.
- No shortcuts: At 320 pages, this is not a solution for Friday’s crisis. Maybe for next quarter’s.
Also worth checking out:
Want to see where it all started? Read Parker’s first book, The Art of Gathering.
Is the conflict on your team caused by one particular person? (You know who.) Try The No A$$hole Rule by Robert Sutton, reviewed in Issue #14.
How to Make Sense of Any Mess
Abby Covert
Self-published (November 2014), free to read online
“I once spent three days defining the word ‘customer.'”
Abby Covert is an information architect. In plain English, she organizes the components of something so that people can understand the whole. A few examples: Restaurant menus, airport signs, and website menus were all arranged by someone, for better or worse.
The book is a seven-step guide that starts with “Identify the Mess” and ends with “Prepare to Adjust.” Each lesson fits on one page, and each chapter ends with exercises you can try to clean up your own mess.
Localization people, go straight to Chapter 4. Covert asks you to write two lists: the words you say, and the words you don’t. (Terminologists will recognize them as preferred and deprecated terms.) In her list of banned words you’ll find “very,” which she calls the laziest word ever. (Confession: I keep a banned-words list too. Mine is longer. Very much longer.) Another lesson is called “Control your vocabulary” and anyone who has ever built a termbase will feel understood.
A nice coincidence for this newsletter: One lesson in Chapter 7 is titled “Argue about discuss it until it’s clear.” Priya Parker would probably keep the arguing.
3 reasons to read this book
- It’s short: About 180 pages of one-page lessons, and you can read all of them online without paying a cent. I finished it in about 3.5 hours, notes included.
- Words come first: Covert treats language as the raw material of any project. She even has a lesson on defining terms for outsiders. (Translators and terminologists won’t learn much new here. But the book is free, so here’s my suggestion: Send the link to the next client who thinks a glossary is optional.)
- Clean up your mess: Homework included, again. The book works best if you apply each step to your own mess as you read.
3 reasons to skip it
- Short on examples: If you learn best from screenshots and case studies, you may feel a bit lost, at least until the second half, which gets more concrete.
- Written for beginners: This is a beginner’s guide to information architecture. If you already work in content design, skip it.
- A web designer’s POV: The book is for “everybody,” but some examples and terms still come from the world of website design.
Also worth checking out:
Would you like more examples? The 10th Anniversary Expanded Collector’s Edition adds new stories and examples.
If Chapter 3 got you hooked on diagrams, try Covert’s follow-up, Stuck? Diagrams Help.
Got a book that helped you make sense of a mess? Send it my way. It might end up in the next issue.