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Listen to The Closer, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBR IDEA cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green Carmichael. Today I'm talking

with HBO Editor Amy Gallo who has just written the HBO Guide to Managing Conflict at Work.

Amy, thank you so much for talking with us today.

Thanks for having me, Sarah.

So the first step to dealing with conflict is, I guess, recognizing the type of conflict you're having,

and you lay out four types of conflict in the book,

relationship task, process, and status. I thought we could just

quickly get into each of these a little bit, starting with relationship conflict, because this is probably

what we most commonly think of maybe when we're having a conflict with someone.

That's right.

Anytime we have a fight with someone, a disagreement with someone, we automatically

feel like it's personal.

And that's a mistake because while relationship conflict may be a part of what's going on, most often the conflict starts at one of the others.

So relationship conflict is that personal feeling.

It might be you snapping at your colleague or raising voices and that's where it feels

personal and it feels like you're being disrespected that's what a personal conflict

is.

And if someone just like the way they chew annoy to,

that might just be a sign of personal conflict.

Yes, exactly.

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