By Wayne Rivers

How often in your family company has the following occurred? A son-in-law, Dad’s right hand man, comes home to his wife, daughter of the founder, and complains loud and long about Dad’s behavior in the company. “You wouldn’t believe what your father did today. He had the staff walking on eggshells again because he got a new customer who wants some work done right away. Instead of integrating that customer’s work into the normal flow of the office, he turned everything upside down and insisted that everyone stop what they were doing so they could get started on this new piece of business. I can’t believe how that old man conducts himself!” The daughter simultaneously empathizes with her husband, but also wants to take care of Dad. The daughter sees Dad that night and mentions that he should be more considerate of the staff in the office and more considerate of the son-in-law in setting daily priorities. Dad responds in the usual way; he flies into a rage saying that affairs in the office have nothing to do with the daughter, and the son-in-law has no right to be talking about his office behavior behind his back.

This phenomenon of indirect handling of conflict is called “triangling” by psychologists. Triangling is a common way people deal with anxiety. People adjust their behavior so they’ll feel more comfortable and, therefore, less anxious. When we feel anxiety, we want to move away from the situation that we think creates the anxiety. Triangling temporarily decreases tension between people, but it does not solve the original problems which created the situation. It acts like a valve on a pressure cooker which allows pressure to bleed off while continuing the cooking process. When anxiety begins to increase between two individuals, one or both of the people move away from the situation. That movement can be either toward another person (like the daughter in the example above) or toward an object or thing, such as working more hours or consuming more alcohol.

Triangle patterns tend to repeat themselves. Once a particular triangle has worked a time or two it becomes patterned in the people involved and becomes relatively inflexible over time. In other words, every time one person experiences anxiety, the individual tends to seek the same person or thing to help decrease the tension. The behavior becomes a habit. For the person who is drawn into the triangle, the process also becomes automatic. That person wants to help, and providing a shoulder to cry upon makes both participants feel better.

Who would you expect to be involved in most triangles within family companies? You guessed it - Mom. In her position as CEO - Chief Emotional Officer - Mom wants harmony in the family and the business. She often acts as a buffer between rugged fathers who are gruff and uncomfortable showing their emotions and children who feel they are unfairly victimized by Dad’s entrepreneurial desire for control. It is a perfectly natural response from Mom to want to patch things up whenever she feels that her husband and children in the company are not enjoying perfect harmony.

Triangles don’t have to be destructive in family companies, and they can provide temporarily relief when tensions are high, but they are not useful in solving the underlying human or business issues that lead to the rise of anxiety in the first place. Only direct communications between the two parties experiencing the tension and constructive, win-win resolutions to their real or imagined differences will pave the way for harmonious communications in the future. Triangling is an escape, a release valve, and feels good in the short term. However, in family businesses where communication is critical in order to preserve harmony, triangling can become a destructive mechanism which prevents legitimate discussion, handling, and resolution of problems. ■

Wayne Rivers is the president of The Family Business Institute, Inc. FBI’s mission is to deliver interpersonal, operational and financial solutions to help family and closely-held businesses achieve breakthrough success.
Vol. 4, Issue 5