Triangulation: What it is, and tips to avoid being caught up in workplace drama

Disclaimer: This post is not written with any intentional assistance from AI, so expect typos, run-on sentences, unclear points, confusing metaphors, and, you know, some other things I can’t think of right now.

Being in the Pacific Northwest is amazing. The food is excellent, and we have so many trees and lots of kombucha. And the weather is great, with rare extremes in temperature or natural phenomena. And sometimes we see orcas in the water and eagles flying around! Or eagles in the water and orcas flying around, if you eat certain types of mushrooms.  

But like other places, we have challenges, one of which passive-aggressiveness. I think I have tons of haters in the city, but I can never be sure who they are, or why they hate me, since folks rarely confront anyone directly or say what’s on their minds. Ryan, stop glaring at me at the farmer’s market!

The passive-aggressiveness, however, though more present in certain geographic areas like the PNW (and, cough, Minnesota), is pervasive to our entire sector. We attract and reward people who tend to be nice, compassionate, and community-minded, whereas other sectors attract and reinforce those who are more assertive and aggressive, and nice people can be conflict-avoidant.

Meanwhile, the constant presence of power dynamics means we often can’t be as direct; or else I’m sure a lot more nonprofit staff would be telling their funders and donors to take their money and shove it where the sun don’t shine (e.g., Seattle).

One of the results of this indirectness is something called triangulation, and it happens a lot. Triangulation is when Party A has issue with Party B, but instead of confronting them directly, they go to Party C to vent and complain.

Now, all of us vent to our friends and colleagues, that’s normal and when done right, even helpful. But in triangulation, Party C then may get mad at Party B on Party A’s behalf without understanding the full picture. It forms a triangle of drama, and left unchecked often becomes a pentagon or octagon of workplace toxicity. In extreme cases, it can devolve into what I call the Wheel of Disillusionment.

Here are some examples:

·       A colleague is annoyed that a new team member skipped the post-event cleanup. Instead of talking to her directly, he complains about her to another colleague. The two of them create a narrative that their new colleague is selfish and not a team-player.

·       A development director organizes a site visit for an afterschool program. The site visit goes terribly because it seems the program director didn’t put much effort into getting the kids prepared and engaged. Instead of talking to the program director, she goes to the ED to complain. The Program Director is annoyed that the DD went to the ED, and instead of talking to the DD about it, he goes to lunch and vents to his friend the Operations Manager.

·       An executive director fails to follow through on getting the board to vote on a paid family leave policy. This upsets the rest of the team. Instead of bringing it up with the ED, a contingency of the staff has a clandestine meeting with a board member about the ED.

·       An organization schedules a big event on the same day as another organization’s big event. Staff at the other organization are upset, but no one brings it up with the first organization. At happy hour, someone from the upset org trash-talks the first org, and now people from several organizations think the first org is no-good, very bad.

We all watch TV shows or movies where huge problems would be solved and everyone happier if people would just communicate with one another directly. It’s the same for our work. But human nature, team dynamics, power differentials, and cultural and other factors come into play that make triangulation ubiquitous and oftentimes more destructive to our work, and thus to our communities, than we know.

Because it is so prevalent, many of us don’t even realize we’re involved in triangulation. I’ve been caught up several times myself, including when I initiated the triangle, with rarely good outcomes. Here are some tips below:

Increase your and others’ awareness of triangulation: It’s helpful to recognize when triangulation is or might take place so you can put a stop to it before it happens or goes too far. Be on the lookout for when you are about to triangulate or be pulled into triangulation. Have a discussion with your team so everyone is aware of this behavior and agrees to try to resolve conflict directly.

Avoid being the third party in a triangle: If someone tries to pull you into a triangle, such as by venting or gossiping about someone else, cut them off and advise them to speak to the person directly. Same thing if they ask you to be an intermediary or messenger with whoever they’re upset with. Give them advice on how they could do it if they are open to it, but don’t get engaged. Set clear boundaries such as by saying, “That must be frustrating, but I am uncomfortable being involved. Have you brought this up to them?”

Talk to people directly when you have conflict with them: This is not always comfortable, but it’s usually the best and cleanest way to resolve the issue. If you need to talk to a colleague who is not involved in the conflict, think of it as getting advice on how to communicate directly with the person you’re having problems with, but that you still need to be the one to do it.

Get your team trained in giving and receiving feedback: A reason why so many people are afraid to talk directly to someone is because we all kind of suck at feedback, both giving and receiving it. At my last org, it was helpful to get ongoing training in this area, and then intentional time to practice it. This includes meta-feedback, which is feedback on people's ability to give and receive feedback, as well as the org's feedback process itself.

Be aware of cultural dynamics: In some cultures, it may be more common to be indirect, possibly even more acceptable than having direct confrontations. So what may seem like triangulation might not be. It could be helpful to discuss these dynamics with the team and come up with group agreements

Consider neurodiversity in both triangulation and conflict resolution: In similar veins, neurodiversity is also a factor. I wrote about a similar topic here in “The way we manage conflicts needs to take neurodiversity into consideration.” People with ADHD may not realize they’re triangulating, for instance. And during direct communications to resolve the problem, someone’s lack of eye contact may not mean they’re being dismissive of your concerns.  

Mitigate for power dynamics: Triangulation happens more often when power differentials are wide. It is easier for those with more positional power to be direct with those with less, than vice versa. So the former need to be thoughtful to balance this out. If you hold more power, make it explicit that you welcome direct feedback. Repeat the message several times and demonstrate that you mean it.

Watch out for meta-triangulation: If you think someone is triangulating instead of talking directly to you about a conflict, don’t meta-triangulate by going to another colleague to complain about the triangulation. I don’t even know what geometric shape that would be, (maybe the Tri-Force from the Zelda videogames) but it never leads to anything good.

Let’s all try to be more direct in our communications and avoid triangulating with one another. Feel free to add your advice and horror stories in the comment section. (By the way, there are two ways to make comments, Disqus or Ghost's built-in system. Feel free to use whichever way is easiest for you. This year, I'm going to try to respond to every comment on posts).

See you next week; I need to go find Ryan at the farmer’s market and challenge him to an organic kombucha brewing contest. That’s how we resolve problems here in the Pacific Northwest when we finally confront one another eight months after the original problem occurred.

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