In Thursday’s teleconference with Israel Galindo, he offered some terrific suggestions for how leaders can better managing themselves in triangles:

1. Assume that whenever you are speaking with someone, you are in a triangle. Nothing is every simply about just you and the other person.

2. If I’m pastoring a congregation, the way most of my congregation relate to me is from the position of pastor first and individual second. We experience a lot of projection from our church members, not because of us personally, but because we occupy the position of leader.

3. Take out Friedman’s book and memorize the eight laws of triangles. (See Edwin Friedman, Generation to Generation , 35-39.)

4. Learn to discern how you personally experience intense triangles (for example, becoming overwhelmed by feelings or becoming confused). Learn to know your own family of origin patterns around triangles.

5. If you find yourself stuck in a triangle, take paper and pencil and start to diagram the triangles. You will get a little more distance and be better able to see the dynamics at play in the triangles.

The recording of the teleconference is available. E-mail me at Margaret@margaretmarcuson.com, and I’ll send you the link.

Here’s a terrific article from Jane Brody of the New York Times on overreacting to things we can’t control or are a minimal threat to us. She quotes British statistician Stuart Briscoe, “…there are serious emotional, social and economic costs to panic,” Mr. Briscoe, a London-based economist for The Financial Times, said in an interview. “We’d be a lot happier if we insisted that people prove their case before making dire pronouncements. We shouldn’t be wasting time worrying about a lot of stupid things,” and should focus instead on hazards we can do something about.

(This article is a reprint from one year ago, in preparation for the upcoming teleconference interview with Israel Galindo on triangles. See below for more information.)

How many times in the last week has someone come to you with a comment or complaint about someone else? How have you responded? A key source of stress for leaders is the way we get caught in emotional triangles. Seeing these triangles as they occur is the best stress-management tool around. It also helps make sense of the sometimes-perplexing dynamics in organizational life.

What is a triangle? The triangle is eternal in all human relationships. Psychiatrist Murray Bowen observed that when the relationship between two people becomes troubled, they will pull in a third person, as a way toward stability. In family life, two squabbling children cry, “Mom!” An unhappy wife talks to her sister about her husband. A frustrated father complains to his tennis partner about his teenaged daughter. Anxiety goes down, and the relationship is stabilized, for the time being.

Triangles occur not only in families, but wherever people organize together. Here are few examples: In church life, the pastor makes a comment a key leader doesn’t like, and that leader complains to another leader. The music director chooses a piece the choir hates, and a choir member gripes to her husband. Or, in business, a manager drops by a colleague’s desk to process a conflict he just had with his administrative assistant. The one forming the triangle feels better. In the case of the choir member complaining to her husband, she has let off steam, and transferred some of her anxiety to her husband. But he probably feels worse. The greater his sense of responsibility for the relationship between the other two (for example, if he chairs the music committee), the worse he feels, and the more stressed he becomes. Similar triangles occur in every organization. Here are just a few: in a school system, superintendent-principal-teacher; in a business, owner-employee-customer; in politics, incumbent-challenger-voter.

We can’t stay out of these triangles. And in fact, triangles are not necessarily bad; they’re simply part of human experience. But how we manage ourselves within the triangles we encounter can make or break our leadership. We manage poorly when we function anxiously within them, when we feel responsible for the relationships of others, or when we take sides within triangles. We can, however, learn to conduct ourselves more effectively in triangles.

Here are some facts about how triangles work:

First, you can’t change the “other side” of a triangle. In other words, you can’t change a relationship you don’t belong to. If you are in a triangle with two other people, you cannot directly affect their relationship. Their relationship is up to them, not to you.

Secondly, if you try to change the other side of a triangle, the situation often gets worse. People resist, consciously or unconsciously, our willful attempts to change them. If two people are fighting the more you try to help them get along, the more they will be in conflict.

Thirdly, when you try to change someone else’s relationship, you carry the stress that belongs to the other two. Trying to do the impossible always creates stress. The other two may love it, because they will experience less stress: you’ve taken on what belongs to them. But there is also no potential for change.

Remember, you can only change a relationship you belong to. You can change that relationship because you are part of it. It’s not always easy to see triangles at work. But simply beginning to observe triangles and to make some different choices about how to relate to others in those triangles can help us all grow.

NEXT TELECONFERENCE: In 2009 I’m offering a series of conversations on the subject of my new book, Leaders Who Last: Sustaining Yourself and Your Ministry. Join me next Thursday, May 28, at 9 Pacific/10 Mountain/11 Central/noon Eastern Time,for a one hour conference call conversation with Israel Galindo on the topic, “Can You See the Triangles?”

Israel Galindo, Ed.D., is an educator with experience in both local church and academic settings. He is the Executive Director of Educational Consultants and Dean and Professor of Christian Education at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Virginia. He is the author of The Hidden Lives of Congregations (Alban) among many other books. You can read some of his provocative writing at the G.R.A.C.E. Writes blog.

E-mail me at Margaret@margaretmarcuson.com with your interest, and I’ll send you call-in information. If you can’t make the call, a recording will be available. There is no charge for the teleconference or the recording.

Archbishop Tutu was in Portland, Oregon last week for the 40th Collins Lecture sponsored by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. You can hear his lecture here, on Oregon Public Radio. I was out of town for the lecture, but I keep hearing about people’s experiences that night.

Here’s a juicy Tutu quote (though not from the lecture), “It is unity we are talking about, not uniformity. What is needed is to respect one another’s points of view and not to impute unworthy motives to one another or to seek to impugn the integrity of the other. Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another and to cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.”

(Extract from Archbishop Tutu’s archiepiscopacy sermon during his enthronement in St. George’s Cathedral as the first black Archbishop of Cape Town, September, 1986)

The church as a whole, and many local churches, would be a different place, if we could truly live this out. These words challenge me to develop my own ability to “cherish” (a word we don’t use often any more) those with whom I disagree. What about you?

Last week at the Leadership in Ministry workshop in Colorado Springs, I gave a presentation for clergy leaders on “Finding a Voice.” In preparation for this talk, I interviewed my voice teacher, Judi Stabler. Judi says in singing, you have to cultivate what you have, not imitate someone else.

Ole Olson, an artist who was there as the spouse of the one of the attendees, told me he learned the same thing in art school. You have to find your own way as an artist, not imitate someone else’s art. He says, “we are unique story tellers, and the telling has to to be in our voice and style.”

At the end of the presentation, I planned to sing. I had talked throughout about the need to “Open your mouth and let your voice out.” Yet when I opened my mouth and started to sing, what came out was a cracked note. I walked away for a moment and when I came back, I was able to sing the song (”How Can I Keep from Singing?”) the best I ever have.

It was a lesson to me, the perfectionist, that finding a voice is a process, and that it doesn’t have to be perfect to have an impact.

I came across an interview with Peter Gomes, while I was catching up on my periodical reading on a plane this week. It’s from the Winter 2009 Harvard Divinity Bulletin. Gomes is a professor at Harvard and minister of Harvard Memorial Church. He makes some fascinating comments about preaching. He suggests that preachers too often back off: “There’s a culture of caution that the church is built on that most preachers are unwilling to challenge…once the preachers discover what the task is, they back off….You don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you. So the result is, you don’t feed them very much. It’s almost a deal — ‘If you don’t disturb us, we won’t disturb you.’ But preaching is essentially a disturbing act. It offers something that is not there. It criticizes something that is there. And it is based on something that is yet to come. Preachers are basically unwilling to make that kind of statement to people whom they either love or fear, and in some cases both.”

Gomes offers a different perspective from Meg Hess’ comments (see my post of April 24) on dealing with difficult issues in preaching. I think the problem with preaching that aims to disturb is that the preacher often delivers the message anxiously and willfully, which makes it much harder for people to hear and formulate their own thoughts. Courageous preaching is important, but we need to find our own clarity and calm as we deliver those messages.

What are your thoughts on the disturbing nature of preaching? Have you heard a disturbing sermon? Delivered one? Thinking about delivering one?