Behind the desk, the owner sports a cap with BOSS printed on it. Before him sits a familiar manager who hasn't been meeting expectations despite repeated attempts to encourage improvement.

The boss delivers the message that he has hesitated to say but is confident that it needs to be done. "You're fired," he says, after softening the words so he sounded more compassionate and less like Donald Trump in the final scene of "Apprentice" episodes.

He then reaches into his desk drawer, removes his BOSS cap and puts on one labeled DAD.

"Son, I heard you lost your job. Is there anything I can do," he asks.

Greg McCann, director of the Family Business Center at Stetson University, says that anecdote clearly illustrates the sometimes didactic relationship that is a family business. Each word—family and business—is loaded with meaning. The success in balancing both first rests in communication, he says.

Talk about the family, the business and the family business. Treat each with a unique vision or perspective. After all, your relationships and roles change and evolve in business. You remain parent and child, but you also may be boss-employee or co-leaders of the company.

"Family business issues are more complex than others because of the family issues," says Linda Finkle, a Washington, D.C.-area professionally certified coach who counsels companies, including family businesses.

Treat each other fairly. Family businesses are less likely to succeed that treat family members with kid gloves, says Jerry Gumpel, a partner at the national law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP. "They bend the rules to accommodate the younger generation. It's a recipe for disaster," he says.

If a family member isn't working out in a particular business role, realize the best option for both the leaders and the employee may be to let him or her go from the business. Or perhaps the person would be best suited in another role in the business.

"The most stress is a person who is a charity case. It hurts the person and it undermines the integrity of the family," McCann says.

Children feel entitled at work sometimes because of their upbringing, says Tina Tessina, a psychotherapist and author of "It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction."

"Often the children haven't been asked to work and learn to deserve what they will receive," Tessina says.

McCann says families should make business development an ongoing practice for interested children. It's like working out, he says, you can't just go to the gym once a year and expect a fit body.

"You can't just involve the child a few times and expect great things," McCann explains.

The Nordstrom department store chain could have become a statistic of businesses gone bad in the next generation after the elders handed over leadership, says Carl Robinson, consulting psychologist and principal of Advanced Leadership Consulting in Seattle.

"The six kids screwed it up terribly and asked one of the elders to come back to run it. It's a very different process (for the next generation) to look at themselves and say we can't do it," Robinson says.

Separate your roles. Sometimes people get so consumed in business, they almost forget they're a family. The next generation sometimes says of the older leaders, "They still treat me like I was 5."

Family relationships, typically, start well before business ever enters into it. For two adults who have spent 18-plus years as parent and child, adapting to a professional relationship can be difficult.

"If a father or mother must chastise a son or daughter over a business issue, it is very difficult to keep the parent-child relationship out of it," says J. David Allen, director of the Institute for Family Business at Baylor University.

McCann says if your 22-year-old child stands up for a presentation and you say her skirt is too short, ask yourself a question: "Are you an employer or a parent at that moment?" If your response is parent, then your comment likely is not appropriate in the workplace.

Be honest. "Don't go into the family business if you have to give up your own dreams," says Susan Newman, social psychologist and author of a dozen books on family relations and parenting. "The young person who gets pulled in runs the risk of being miserable."

Family members always should have the option to leave the business. Perhaps the person pursues a different career opportunity. Maybe a sabbatical away from the business is in order. Perhaps they will return to the family business with a fresher perspective or maybe they will decide that their best role is family only.

"You don't want to have what goes on in the office rupture the bond you have with your son or daughter," Newman says.

McCann says he knew one family where the son waited 10 years to get up the courage to tell his dad that he wanted to leave and start his own business. The dad replied that he thought for a long time that's what his son wanted but didn't say anything, then he wished him luck.

Define roles and rules. Make what is implicit, explicit, says McCann.

"If IBM offered you a job, but wouldn't provide the hours, pay or job description, you wouldn't take it. Why would you within the family business?"

Write down expectations, job duties, salary, etc. so everyone is working from the same page.

Create non-business zones to focus on the family, particularly the extended family. "Some families think if you're not part of the business you're not part of the family," McCann notes.

Ask what's the win-win. Reflection on the family and business combination happens infrequently, if at all.

Realize that despite everything, family and business are not 100 percent separable. "The one thing we have noticed is that family politics and business politics are interwoven in a way that can't be undone," says Aaron Keller, managing principal at Minneapolis-based Capsule and adjunct marketing professor at the University of St. Thomas.

Allen agrees. "It is very difficult to separate the 'purely business' from the 'purely family' issues that arrive on a daily business."

While that can create tension, it also can be beneficial, both men say.

The family business stems from the commonalities of backgrounds, interests, purpose and values, Allen notes. "These commonalities can be a major source of strength as a family embarks upon the journey that is inherent within business.

"The key is to recognize this and consciously exercise these strengths in order to gain the maximum benefits." e