Resolving High Stakes Conflict Before It Gets Expensive
Request a Private Conversation
The Cost of Unresolved Conflict
Unaddressed conflict inside a business does not disappear, it compounds.
Clinical decisions, hiring decisions, and ownership conversations all slow.
Factions quietly form.
The associate you invested in starts looking for a way out.
Succession timelines stall.
Key associates, partners, and operators disengage or exit.
Strategic clarity dissolves into emotional reaction.
The financial impact is measurable. The relational damage often is not — until it is permanent. Most leaders wait too long to intervene.
By the time outside advisors are engaged, positions have hardened and trust has already thinned.
We help owners and leadership teams address difficult conversations early — before conflict turns into cost, risk, or regret.
Who We Serve
Healthcare Practice Owners
This work is designed for dental, medical, and allied health practice owners who recognize themselves in one or more of these moments:
An associate buy-in or equity conversation has been circling for months — and the longer it goes unaddressed, the more awkward it becomes.
A founding partner is approaching retirement but succession terms, patient handover, and ownership transfer have never been clearly defined.
You built this practice alongside a partner or associate whose expectations, work ethic, or vision no longer aligns with yours — and the tension is starting to affect the team and the culture.
A buy-out is approaching and positions are already hardening before anyone has sat down to have a real conversation.
The clinical team is fracturing — between practitioners, between front desk and clinical staff, or between partners and associates — and the tension is affecting patient care, staff retention, and the day-to-day culture of the practice.
What We Do
Summit Crown Advisory works directly with practice owners, founding partners, and clinical leadership teams to strengthen their capacity to resolve conflict, conduct difficult conversations, and address tension before it escalates.
This includes private counsel through live ownership and associate situations, structured preparation for high-stakes conversations around equity, buy-ins, and succession, leadership training in conflict resolution and negotiation for practice teams, private facilitation of critical partner meetings, and mediation when disputes require neutral intervention.
We are engaged early — before conflict becomes litigation, a departing associate, a fractured partnership, or the quiet erosion of everything you built.
Services
Strategic Conflict Resolution & Mediation
A confidential engagement designed for practices navigating high-stakes conflict that cannot move forward without structured intervention.
What it includes
Confidential one-on-one stakeholder interviews to identify misalignment, authority dynamics, and root causes.
A structured alignment & risk brief outlining key issues and forward pathways.
Facilitated resolution sessions designed to surface unspoken concerns and establish clear commitments.
Defined agreements and documented next steps to restore momentum.
Follow-up stabilization support to prevent regression and reinforce accountability.
Investment: Enquire with our team by requesting a private conversation
Communication & Conflict Resolution Training
A structured training relationship for healthcare practice owners and their leadership teams who need practical frameworks for navigating the difficult conversations that define practice life.
What it includes
Bespoke training sessions focused on leadership communication, how to have difficult conversations, conflict prevention, and leadership clarity.
Practical frameworks and preparation models for navigating consequential conversations with partners, associates, team members, or family.
Guidance on addressing partnership strain, feedback breakdowns, misalignment, and early-stage disputes before positions harden.
Investment: Enquire with our team by requesting a private conversation
One-on-One Private Counsel & Coaching
One‑on‑one private counsel to help leaders navigate sensitive conversations, interpersonal conflict, and emotionally charged leadership moments.
What it includes
Semi-monthly private coaching sessions for the owner or principal (or selected leader) focused on conflict resolution, communication clarity, and emotional steadiness.
Support preparing for high‑stakes conversations with team members, associates, partners, or family.
Guidance on managing tension, misalignment, and interpersonal dynamics
Strategic thought partnership to prevent issues from escalating
Discreet access for moments requiring calm, perspective, and judgment.
Investment: Enquire with our team by requesting a private conversation
Engagements are limited and offered by invitation or referral.
Request a Private Conversation
How We Work at Summit Crown
1. Clarity Before Strategy
We begin in silence — understanding the goals, personalities, unspoken tensions, partner dynamics, and family expectations shaping your challenge. We study not just the facts, but the unseen forces moving beneath them.
2. Strategy Before Movement
Only once clarity is achieved do we design your communication architecture — a precise combination of conflict resolution, negotiation framing, behavioral insight, and strategic counsel tailored to the realities of leading a business, a partnership, or a family business.
3. Movement With Meaning
Every conversation, deal, and decision becomes intentional — aligned with your values, protecting both your position and your peace, and ensuring that each step strengthens the legacy you’re building.
Who We Are
Resolving Conflict. Protecting Businesses.
We are a Calgary based boutique advisory firm that helps business owners and their leadership teams navigate the difficult conversations that quietly determine outcomes — where the stakes are high and the margin for error is small.
We don’t replace your legal, financial, or governance advisors. We work alongside them — ensuring the conversations they depend on actually happen, and happen well.
Business growth and legacy are rarely lost through poor intentions. It’s lost through conversations that were delayed, avoided, or mishandled.
Founder & Principal
Mark Raffan
Mark Raffan, an award-winning, Harvard trained mediation and negotiation expert, is a trusted advisor to business owners navigating high-stakes decisions.
Ranked as a top Negotiation Thought Leader in the world by Global Gurus, Mark has led and advised on multi-million-dollar negotiations across industries.
His work is trusted by Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurs who value clear, practical strategies that protect both results and relationships.
Mark is the author of “9 Secrets to Win Deals and Influence Stakeholders” and a contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Thrive Global.
Over the past two decades, Mark has worked in conflict-laden decision environments, advising leaders, teams, and families during pivotal transitions.
But his work is not only professional.
Having witnessed the strain that unspoken tension, misaligned expectations, and difficult conversations placed on his own family’s business, Mark often reflects that he wishes that a steady, discreet advisor capable of guiding leaders and businesses through emotionally charged decisions before they hardened into fractures had been there to help.
That reflection shapes his approach today.
Delay Is Where Cost Accumulates
When difficult conversations are delayed, the cost always compounds. We provide discreet counsel to leadership teams and owners who want to resolve conflict, restore clarity, and protect their practice before issues escalate.
If you’re sensing something isn’t being addressed — or isn’t being handled well — it’s worth a conversation. Request a private conversation.