Family Owned & Operated Businesses

Helping businesses navigate the "family" part of family business with sanity, humanity, clarity, and joy. 

For better or for worse, in family-owned-and-operated businesses, family dynamics impact operations. Business IS personal, and vice versa. But it’s not always easy to untether family dynamics from business operations in a family business setting. Here at SCHEMA, we do just that.

SCHEMA helps families figure out how to work together, better. Whether creating new working arrangements, coaching individual members, or facilitating decision-making, SCHEMA helps family businesses operate with greater clarity and grace.

  • New pathways forward when the old way just isn’t working

  • Reduced confusion

  • Better teamwork

  • Clearer communication

  • Clearer decision-making

Fostering Growth, Collaboration, and Maturity

Just as your business changes over time, your relationships and dynamics change as people grow. Navigating normal life-cycles of both business and family development can be challenging, but is especially so during times of growth, succession planning, or crisis. Here at SCHEMA, we help families navigate changing business landscapes while preserving and growing relationship. Through compassionate and pragmatic coaching, we foster healthy and constructive dialogue to create clarity, operational resilience, and relational harmony. 

    • They would like to proactively invest in their family relationships, particularly when forming Family Offices and multigenerational dynasties

    • They are struggling to get on the same page about business operations or succession planning

    • They have different visions for the future and need facilitation

    • They have little or no coherent vision for the future and need help to build one together, constructively

    • They are navigating health diagnoses that impact decision-making for business and/or family

    • They need a third party facilitator for succession-planning strategy

    • Roles and responsibilities need to be reconfigured

    • Generational turnover is causing operational turmoil

    • Generations are struggling to work together effectively

    • Younger generations are unprepared to lead effectively

    • Older generations intend to baton-pass but find it hard/scary to do so

    • Longstanding dynamics have become counterproductive and are eroding culture within the business, and change/healing is required.

    • Crises have impacted the business and the family wants to weather the storm constructively, together.

    • More connected and unified

    • More hopeful and encouraged about their family’s future

    • More understood, personally, and more aware of the mindset of others in a way that allows them to collaborate more effectively and compassionately

    • Relieved!

    • Clear-headed and aligned about next steps

    • Excited about the future (of both business and family)

  • All potential clients must engage in a free initial intake session to see if we’re a right fit for each other. You can learn more about that process here.

    If you’ve been referred to us, we can also include (or exclude) the referrer in your initial session, depending on your preference.

  • Thank you for the referral — You can count on us to take good care of your clients. We welcome a discussion with you prior to a client introduction. Feel free to book time here, or call us at +1-206-552-0333.

    PLEASE NOTE:

    • All potential clients must engage in a free initial intake session to see if we’re a right fit for each other. You can learn more about the client’s process here.

    • Depending on the client’s preference, we will either include or exclude you from both the initial meeting and the engagement. Please note that if the client elects to exclude you, then we will neither confirm nor deny the client’s participation, and cannot answer any further questions about the client’s case, due to confidentiality.