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And thanks for listening. Welcome to the HBR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green Carmichael.

What happened the last time you got into a fight with a coworker? Did she raise her voice while you got quieter and quieter and quieter? Or did you find yourself

getting hot under the collar while someone shouted right back at you?

Personality types play a huge role in how we deal with conflict at work.

While the academic research points to different variations,

it turns out that it can be very useful to simply break down personalities

into two types of people.

Conflict seekers and conflict avoiders.

The tactics that work when two conflict seekers go head to head are different than tactics

required when two avoiders are dancing around each other.

To resolve conflicts at work, you need to start by knowing your own tendencies and by telling

which kind of person you're dealing with.

To help us understand this distinction and apply it to our own work lives, we sought out Amy Gallo,

HBR contributing editor. She's the author of the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict.

Amy, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me, Sarah.

So how do you know if you're a conflict of voider or is it sort of obvious?

I think for some people it's obvious.

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