A good friend of mine, who's also a much better manager than me, believes managers are born, not made. By extension, his argument is that—despite my new (and expensive) subscription to Harvard Business Review—I'm a lost cause.

I guess I manage the same way I parent: by being one of them. I love playing with my kids, getting in trouble with them and I'm often a bigger clown. It works great for two-year-old Harley, but not so much with 13-year-old Jasmine. The sober realization that they require two very different approaches dawned on me a while ago. I'm just having a hard time accepting it.

It's the same with those who report to me. I don't wanna be the boss guy. I wanna be the comrade, the co-worker, the lunch buddy. And I need to let that go. I know. I've having a hard time accepting that, too.

Author Alvin Toffler once said something about managers becoming what they most despise—bureaucrats, and I guess to a certain extent that's true. And in that regard, maybe I am a lost cause.

Today's post illustrates that, I suppose. See, every week I pontificate about the latest workplace survey or lecture you about all those disgruntled employees of yours. But today's different. Enrollment season's barreling down on us—along with the stress-saddled, calendar-riddled holidays. And as a so-called perfect storm sweeps over the East Coast, throwing employers, employees and maybe even an election into chaos, I felt like focusing on the human part of human resources.

So, I guess I'll heed the words of baseball manager Casey Stengel, who infamously advised that, "The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided."