Last month a client told me about her week. Someone on her team kept stopping by to vent about another teammate. Not to ask for help. Just to complain. My client nodded along, said the right things, and walked away carrying a problem that was never hers to carry.
That is triangulation. Two people who won’t talk to each other, using a third person to say what they should be saving for one another.
It happens in every office. Someone is mad at a coworker and tells you instead of them. Someone wants a decision made and pulls in a manager instead of asking directly. You get looped into a fight you didn’t start, holding information you didn’t ask for, expected to fix a relationship that isn’t yours.
Before I go further, I want to be fair to the person doing the venting. Not every detour is avoidance. If there’s a power gap, a history of retaliation, or the issue is harassment or bullying, going around someone isn’t weak. It’s smart. Sometimes you loop in a third party because going direct isn’t safe, and that instinct deserves respect, not a lecture.
Here’s the line I watch for instead. Is this person trying to figure out how to say something hard themselves, or trying to get you to say it for them? The first is someone gathering courage. The second is triangulation doing its real job, which is coercion. It moves a person or a decision without anyone having to own the ask. “Can you help me think through how to tell her” is different from “can you just handle it so I don’t have to.” One asks for support. The other asks you to be the weapon.
New leaders fall for the second kind constantly. You want to be helpful. You want to be the person people trust with the hard stuff. So you listen, you nod, and somewhere in there you agree to carry a message, deliver a verdict, or fix a relationship you were never part of. That’s not helping. That’s letting someone else’s discomfort become your job.
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It doesn’t stay at the office. It’s a friend venting about her mother-in-law instead of talking to her. It’s another friend asking you to “mention something” to her husband for her. It’s your adult kid telling you what their sibling did instead of telling their sibling. Same pattern, different table. Some of that is just processing out loud, and that’s allowed. But watch for the ask underneath it. If what they actually want is for you to fix it, deliver it, or take a side so they don’t have to, that’s not venting anymore.
Here’s what I tell my clients. Listening is not the same as taking ownership. You can hear someone out, take their safety and their reasons seriously, and still say, “Have you told her this yet, or do you want help figuring out how?” You can be kind and still hand the problem back to the two people who actually own it.
Your calendar is not a democracy, and neither is your inbox. You do not have to be the relay station for conversations that were never meant to go through you.
The next time someone brings you a complaint about someone else, try one question. “What did they say when you told them?” If the answer is nothing, the conversation isn’t over. It hasn’t started.
No is a complete sentence. So is “that sounds like a conversation the two of you need to have.”
Bet on the jockey, not the horse. And stop letting other people hand you their horse to ride.
— Donna
If this is showing up on your team right now and you want a hand thinking through it, hit reply. I read every one.
