There’s a kind of one-on-one that isn’t about the person in it. Ten minutes in, the real subject arrives: a colleague. What she said in planning, the handoffs he keeps missing. It tends to end with a small, well-meant promise: “I’ll mention it to them.”

The family therapist Murray Bowen gave this move a name: triangulation. When tension between two people gets uncomfortable, they rarely resolve it. They recruit a third person to absorb some of it. The triangle lowers the temperature without touching the tension, and managers make ideal thirds: caring, central, and rewarded daily for being helpful.

Each relayed message brings relief, and the relief is what keeps the pattern running. The direct channel between the two people goes quiet from disuse, so the next friction routes through you a little faster, until you’re holding everyone’s honest opinions of everyone else. Nearly every conflict I hear about arrives secondhand, from someone who hasn’t yet said any of it to the person it concerns. In most teams, conflict is discussed everywhere except between the people having it.

So when you feel the promise forming this week, trade it for a different one: “This sounds worth saying to her directly. Want to work out how, together? I’ll sit in if it helps.” You’re still there. You’re just not the wire anymore.

Somewhere on your team, two people are talking to each other only through you. Hand the conversation back.