“In a life time's association with great and good men, he is the one invisible figure to whom I owe an incalculable debt.”

Dwight Eisenhower spent three years in the Panama Canal Zone being mentored by Fox Connor. As in all great mentoring relationships, there was a spirit of reciprocity between them. Ike developed rapidly as an officer and human being, learning how to think strategically about war plans and the importance of building strong relationships with allies. Connor found an enthusiastic student who not only looked up to him but had a profound sense of gratitude for the lessons he was being taught.

Connor continued to support Ike when he was through with this three-year stint in the Canal Zone, championing his rise to success amidst various hurdles. Ike was still out of favor with the Chief of Infantry due to this controversial article on tank warfare. Ike was greatly disappointed when his efforts to attend the advanced course for high-potential army officers at Fort Leavenworth had been denied to him. Instead of being part of an elite group of officers destined to have great opportunities, his career was in limbo.

Then one day, Ike was sent a strange telegram from Connor advising him to make no protest no matter what assignment he was given. He must accept those orders without question. Ike was puzzled when he got orders to transfer from infantry to the Adjutant General’s Chief of Staff’s office. Had he not trusted Connor completely, he would have protested vigorously being transferred from a combat division to the army staff. Yet in due course, the mystery was cleared up. It turned out that there was a vacancy in the Adjutant General Corps for a high-potential officer to attend Leavenworth, and Ike’s name was on the list.

Ike was thrilled, but wrote to Connor that he was somewhat insecure, both because the Chief of Infantry told him his appointment to Leavenworth would “come to nothing” and because he had never served in a command position during WWI. Connor wrote back to Ike saying he completely believed in him and that he didn’t have to worry. “I prepared you for command during your time in Panama by asking you to post orders for the whole camp every day rather than just carrying out the duties of an executive officer.”

As it turned out, while Ike was an average student at West Point, he excelled at Leavenworth both in his strategic thinking and social skills. Ike went on to stand number one in his class, to a great degree because of his training with Connor. Ike was highly appreciative of Connor throughout his life, and as he wrote in latter years, “In a life time’s association with great and good men, he is the one invisible figure to whom I owe an incalculable debt.”

There were several other times in Ike’s career when Connor intervened, both to raise his spirits and manipulate the bureaucracy. One time involved getting Ike to serve on the staff of George C. Marshall, another protégé of Connor’s who had been appointed to the new Joint Chief’s of Staff at the outbreak of WWII. After taking a fast train to Washington and reporting for duty, he was immediately summoned to Marshall’s office.

Marshall told Ike he had some skepticism about his appointment, as he was recommended by a general, and had not really proven his stripes. Then he said to Ike, “I need a battle plan for defending the Philipenes. Ike said, “The only thing I know about that situation now is what I read in the newspapers.” Then Ike paused, “Give me a couple of hours.” In a couple of hours he returned with a battle plan that Marshall, who was considered “almost a genius” in military terms, was highly impressed with. Ike also proved in short order he could execute.

It turns out that, while Marshall wanted to be European Commander, FDR was so enamored of his brilliance that he refused to let him leave Washington. Ike got the job. He wrote Connor when he was stationed in London, “More and more my thoughts turn back to you and to the days when I was able to serve under your leadership and wise counsel. I cannot tell you how much I would appreciate at this moment an opportunity for an hours discussion with you about the problems that constantly beset me.”

The letter then goes on to discuss the Chiefs of Services in various operations. Ike was addressing important matters that had to be solved. Later in August 31, 1942, Ike wrote a second letter. In it he agreed with Connors contention that the greatest problem confronting the Allies was to keep Russian in the war, which would weaken Hitler on the Western Front. Connor advised Ike to launch a cross channel operation vs. focus on landings in North Africa. This led to Ike’s appointment as Supreme Allied Commander and the invasion of Normandy.

To me it is amazing that Fox Connor, “the Man who Made Ike,” was a teacher to not just to Eisenhower, but to George Patton and George Marshall. These three men played the most instrumental role in defeating Hitler and winning WWII. I am struck by Ike’s quote about Connor, “In a life time’s association with great and good men, he is the one invisible figure to whom I owe an incalculable debt.”

The words the strikes me the most about this quotation in which Ike praises Connor and speaks for perhaps thousands of other powerful mentoring relationships is the reference to Connor as the “invisible figure,” in this case one who made history. It was this story that launched me into an exciting new investigation of not just coaching, but mentoring. Stay tuned for more.

The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time

In researching my mentoring story about Ike, I read something in his memoir, At Ease, that captured my interest about the building of the Panama Canal. It turns out that the Canal Zone is one of the wettest regions in the world, where there are torrential downpours eight months out of the year, to the tune of three inches an hour. One day after Ike and Connor were inspecting the trails around the canal, they returned to find the entire army encampment, including Ike’s house, buried by a gigantic mud slide.

This roused my curiosity and I pick up a copy a great new book by Matthew Parker, Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time. As the book portrays, the Panama Canal had a number of firsts: engineering, financial, and medical. Yet one of the most striking was the astronomical loss of life.

Three quarters of the workers, mostly from the British West Indies, were hospitalized every year and suffered loss of arms and legs almost every day. According to the most conservative estimates, over 25,000 people, most of whom worked in conditions of semi-slavery, died every year during the Canal’s construction due to yellow fever, malaria, and small pox. People worked under conditions of rain, sun, gunpowder, mud, and millions of mosquitoes for officials that did not give a whistle-blast more of care for their lives than a rusting ship wrecked along a desolate sea coast.

Yet interestingly enough, most of the British West Indies workers who toiled in the project operated like soldiers going off to fight a great war. They were fiercely proud to be part of a heroic effort that would permanently change the world. As one worker put it after the completion of the canal, “Many times I have met death at my door; but thank God I am alive to see the great difference that the Canal has made and the wonderful fame it has around the world.”

The story of the Panama Canal shows the innate desire of human beings to make a difference in the world. The Canal was completed in 1914 and it was only 7 years later in 1921 that Fox Connor and Ike went there to defend it. In my next blog, I will return to the tail of how Fox Connor launched Ike’s career after his three year stint with him in the Canal Zone.

Ike and Fox Connor

I picked up a book on CD called General Ike and soon found myself listening to a fascinating and intriguing tale. Central to it was an extraordinary man who was mentor to three men who had the biggest impact on winning WWII: Dwight Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, and George S. Patton.

Unlike George Patton, who came from a very wealthy NY family and looked at entrance into West Point as the beginning of a life-long adventure in the military, Dwight Eisenhower came from the wrong side of the tracks in Abilene Kansas and had entered West Point mainly to get a free college education.

One Sunday afternoon in 1921, Patton invited Ike and Mamie over to his house at Fort Meade for a Sunday brunch with a group of people. One person there just happened to be Brigadier General Fox Connor, a man who would become Ike’s mentor and transform his life.

Connor had gone to France with General Pershing of the AEF Headquarters in WWI where he became known as a near genius in his job as Chief of Operations. At the end of the war, he was only 44, but kept his rank as Brigadier General.The work that Ike and Patton were doing with tanks had come to Connor’s attention and Connor seized upon this opportunity to take a look at what was going on. He asked the two younger officers to tour him around Camp Meade and show him their tank training site. This they did enthusiastically, as very few senior officers were giving them encouragement. Connor was impressed with Ike’s game-changing ideas.

General Connor knew that the Treaty of Versaille was flawed and that a second war was inevitable. Yet he knew that the next generation of talented leaders would be needed to fight it. He kept a “Black Book” of talented young officers in the army with the highest potential, and decided to make it a personal mission to help them grow and develop. Amongst these were George C. Marshall, George S Patton, and George C. Marshall who had served under him in the AEF in Europe. It is fascinating to consider that Connor was a mentor to the three men who had the greatest impact on the Allied victory in World War II.

Despite the opposition of the Chief of Infantry and General Rockenbach of Fort Meade, who wanted Ike to remain as a football coach, Connor used his influence to have Ike be appointed his Executive Officer. At the time, Connor was serving as the Head of a Command in the Panama Canal Zone in charge of making sure that the strategic assset could be defended. (Actually the job involved making sure the trails around the command could be successfully traversed by soldiers and pack animals.)

Ike who has become discouraged about his prospects in the military and devastated about the early death of his first born son, Dwight Icky Eisenhower, took on the assignment with relish. Connor had provided an opening to a new world for Ike. Ike arrived in Panama Canal Zone in 1922. The camp was hot and humid and perched over a hill and mudslides were frequent. Living quarters were miserable; Ike described them as awful, flimsy old construction camps with bats and mosquitoes everywhere. His house was like a Turkish bath after every storm.

If domestic conditions were difficult, the relationship with Connor on a professional basis was enormously rewarding. As Ike eloquently said in his personal memoir, At Ease, “Connor was a tall, easy going Mississippian, who never put on any airs of any kind; the most warm, open, honest and ablest man I have ever known.” It was as if Ike had entered a super-accelerated leadership development university with one professor and one student—General Connor and himself—with a curriculum that would last for 3 ½ years.

Ike and Patton

Shortly after my romp through Harvard Yard where I met with Tony Mayo, I took a shopping trip, not to one of our classy high-end malls in the Boston area, but to the proletarian Building 19 whose advertising moniker is Good Stuff Cheap (reading glasses, oriental carpets, designer suits, etc.)

I like Building 19 because, while the store does have cheap stuff, it’s possible to find bits of treasure there, and in this case, I happened to luck out. As I have to drive from my house in Boston to my house in Ogunquit Maine I was looking for some books on CD and the store had some on sale.

After sorting through the usual collection of mysteries and thrillers, I saw a boxed set called General Ike, The Personal Reminisces of His Son John S. D. Eisenhower for just $7.98. I purchased this and went out to the car to listen as I made my way north. Within 5 or 10 minutes I found myself totally captivated by a story being told by the narrator, one that ignited my investigation into the subject of mentoring.

As the story goes…One day two men road down a long, dark, country road heading toward Fort Meade, Maryland. The two men were armed with pistols and were hunting banditos, who were reported to be harassing local service men in the area and taking their wallets. The two men, later to become heroes known world-wide, never found any bandits, but the incident shows the aggressive, battle-ready nature of those individuals.

One was Dwight Eisenhower, who led the allies in WWII and went on to become President; the other was George Patton, who gained fame as a charismatic general, the soldier Hitler and his Field Marshals were terrified might bring an end to the Third Reich. I found out that Ike had started out as a mediocre, slightly above average student at West Point and developed a reputation for being kind of a maverick.

Both Ike and Patton (who was six years Ike’s senior) trained tank crews during WWI. At the close of the war, Ike had developed some game-changing ideas on tank warfare and Patton, an early admirer of Ike, attended his lectures, vociferously taking notes. In 1921, Ike authored a controversial article in which he visualized fleet-foot agile tanks armed with canon and machine guns attacking en mass, breaking through the enemy lines, and tearing up the enemy's rear guard.

At that time, tanks were lightly armed, rather clumsy and were mainly used to protect soldiers in the infantry. The article got him in trouble with the head of the army core and almost derailed his career.

George Patton's influence on Ike was significant. His greatest role was to bring Ike under the influence of Fox Connor, the man who was to become his mentor.

General Ike and His Mentors …to be continued.

A Visit with Tony Mayo of the Harvard Global Leadership Initiative

Last week I had a meeting with Tony Mayo, professor of the Harvard Business School’s Global Leadership Initiative. It was a cold blustery New England day and I wandered through Harvard Yard in shoes that felt two sizes too small trying to find Tony’s office in the Gallatin Building.

It turns out that the front entrance of the Gallatin, a Georgian brick building that reminded me of “merry ole England” was under construction, so I wandered around the building looking for a side door. I eventually happened upon the entrance of the antique brick building with a green door that looked like something right out of Charles Dickens.

On the front entrance of the door was a small brass sign marked “Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness,” which looked so quaint that it struck me as humorous. I half expected Admiral Nelson of the Royal Navy or his secretary Bob Cratchit (A Christmas Carol) to be on the other side of it.

After entering the building, I found a contemporary office with a helpful administrative assistant who directed me toward Tony Mayo’s digs in the next building over. Tony was as charming and as gracious as he could be throughout the whole meeting, as I explained bumping into the arcane “Institute of Strategy and Competitiveness.”

“Oh that’s Michael Porter’s office,” he said (the world famous strategy guru.) After a chuckle or two we got down to discussing Tony’s program at the Institute for Global Leadership Development. We both agreed that leadership development was probably more important for corporate competitiveness than strategic mapping.

Tony explained that the GLI program was based on (a) a group of 120 30-something executives visiting HBS for a few weeks to get schooled in the classic case-study approach; (b) a virtual team experience based on a business simulation after they left Harvard and returned to work; and (c) a 360 feedback with some minimal executive coaching.

Tony said that he had no pretensions about the GLI program being the greatest thing in the world, but it was as he put it “definitely helpful.” I then took Tony through an overview of the Masterful Coaching approach, emphasizing the MC Paradigm of Leadership Development: (1) Leaders develop in the process of producing extraordinary results; (2) Focus on an Impossible Future not leadership gaps; and (3) Coach people on real goals, real problems, in real time.

Tony’s generously acknowledged the MC approach as transformational, where as the HBS approach was very transactional. We both at that point pledged to keep the conversation going in order to explore possibilities for collaboration. “Harvard is thinking about whether or not they want to be in the coaching business. And so let’s keep up the dialogue.”

At the end of the conversation I asked Tony what he was passionate about and he admitted that it wasn’t coaching. He said he was passionate about the research he was involved in about great leaders of the 20th century business.

I looked at a book that he wrote on the subject called, In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the 20th Century. On the cover were some famous leaders like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Henry Ford, as well as some unsung heroes that Tony said he actually found more interesting.

After listening to Tony talk about this I chimed in, afraid of not being professional but being my usual provocative self, “Tony, it seems like you are interested in great leaders after the fact, what they achieved after they became (great) leaders. I am interested in great leaders before the fact, that is to say, how one ordinary person with talent and ability actually transforms into an extraordinary leader.”

I looked at Warren Buffet’s picture on the cover of Tony’s book and asked Tony, “Did you know Warren Buffet once left Grand Central Station on a Saturday morning bound for Washington DC in hopes of meeting the man who would become his mentor, Leo Goodwin, the founder of Geico Insurance (a company Buffet owns today)?” Tony acknowledged he hadn’t heard about this.

The story goes that it turned out that the office was closed on Saturday, but Buffet banged on the door and was admitted by the janitor, who called “the old man” and told him he had a visitor. The old man graciously invited Buffet up to meet him and thus began a relationship that had a powerful impact on Buffet’s development as both a leader and business savant.

I said, “If you look at each of the people in your book, I am sure there was a coaching and mentoring tale behind it.” Tony agreed that if you looked at leadership from that perspective, you would probably find many such tales. “So why isn’t coaching and mentoring part of what you do at the Harvard Business School?” Tony smiled graciously and we agreed to keep the conversation going.

As I left the office that day I kept thinking about “Leadership Before the Fact” vs. “Leadership After the Fact.” I decided to look into the Buffet story and other stories. Little did I know at the time that this thought would lead me into an investigation of the roles that mentors play in developing high potential people.

(In the coming weeks I plan to blog often about the new investigation I am making into mentoring high potential leaders.)

A few years back, I landed in Singapore on my way to give a speech on The Leader as Coach to a group of political and local business leaders.

My first observation: Singapore works! The evidence was everywhere.

Prime Minister Lee (now known as Minister Mentor) had a vision of Singapore being hailed as an economic miracle and unabashedly micromanaged his island to make it a reality.

At the heart of the matter was ease of doing business—and that started with immigration controls, baggage retrieval, and the speed with which one could get settled downtown. Lee, often referred to as a “big man on a small stage,” never intended to become a leader. He dared to see and hear the call to leadership when he returned to Singapore from Hong Kong in World War II and found the then British Colony in a state of disaster with food shortages, housing shortages, and a dearth of economic problems, including no natural resources. Lee, who joined a political party which ultimately achieved independence from Britain, became the first officially elected Prime Minster of Singapore, leading from 1959 to 1990.

Lee’s first act of governance was to invite his political colleagues to a meeting at the Istana Palace, the old colonial governor’s house, a gleaming white, bungalow where they engaged in dialogue about a vision of an Impossible Future for Singapore that entailed transforming Singapore from a “Third World to a First in the World.” Lee and his ministers then stood in this future 20 years out and develop a national strategy that would move them from here to there.

Lee managed this miraculous transformation in Singapore’s economy, while maintaining tight political control over the country that had teetered on the brink of chaos, sometimes bordering on the extreme. It is still illegal to chew gum in Singapore. By the mid 90’s, due to PM Lee’s vision, determination, and action, Singapore is the number one financial center, the number one industrial leader, the number one oil refiner in Asia. Further, its GDP (average household income) is number five in the world, long ago surpassing Britain, its former colonizer.

Lee points out that leading a country to an Impossible Future is only possible when leaders stay intensely focused on both the longer-term goals and the immediate ones. Most western politicians, like most CEOs, are focused only on the immediate goals as determined by the press (Iraq, Iran, North Korea) and by the mid-term and full-term elections, or the stock market. As a result, they tend to only focus on short-term goals, and often fail to accomplish something significant.

Another factor in reaching an Impossible Future, says Lee, is leadership stability. In Western governments, according to Lee, we have “revolving door leadership.” If someone becomes President or CEO, they have to learn to lead a country from scratch and come up the learning curve almost overnight. Lee’s long term in office allowed him to both learn how to lead a country over time, accomplish what he really needed to accomplish, as well as mentoring his successors.

When Lee stepped down from his Prime Minster’s job in 1990, ceding power to Goh Chok Tong, he served as a Senior Minister. He currently holds the specially created post of Minister Mentor under his son Lee Hsien Loong, who became the nations’ third Prime Minister in 2004. The shift in Lee’s role from a leader, which allowed him to take charge of a fractious island, to a coach and monitor was not just a change in form for Prime Minister Lee, but a real transformation.

Lee has had to learn to check his substantial ego at the door and focus on developing the next generation of leaders, rather than building a nation as he did in the past. “In my current role, I cannot direct any Minister or direct any policy. I can only mentor them based on my background and years of experience.” Lee often spends evenings with his son the Prime Minister and his Deputies, coaching and mentoring them until the wee hours of the morning on reinventing Singapore once again.

Interestingly enough, the need for Lee to transform himself as a leader occurred precisely at the time when Singapore needed to transform its economy in order to sustain the gains of the past 30 years. His number one priority is to coach and mentor the next generation of Singapore leaders to find a new act. The old one, whose signature was manufacturing and operational excellence, isn’t cutting it anymore. High GDP is driving Singapore toward a professional service firm economy and high tech from contracting and manufacturing. For example, one Singapore worker costs the same as three in Malaysia, eight in Thailand, thirteen n China, and eighteen in India.

Through Minister Mentor has many TPOVs—“Lead from a revolutionary vision; take evolutionary steps,” “Make Singapore Better By Design,” “Leadership is how fast you act when things go wrong”—he is prone to asking provocative questions. “How can we as leaders used to holding power in our hands not be limited by the people we have wound up being, in order to foster creativity and innovation and ensure Singapore’s prosperity?” Lee also regularly mentors leaders from Beijing to Bangalore, and other capitals on how to maintain political stability while achieving rapid economic growth.

Coaching can be about leadership breakthroughs or business breakthroughs or a lot of other things. Yet what makes the difference in how effective you are as a coach is where you come from.

First of all, I think Masterful Coaches tend to be both highly effective people and highly compassionate people.

On the one hand, I am motivated as a coach by helping people realize goals and aspirations that they previously found difficult or even impossible. On the other hand, I am motivated by my experience of empathy for people’s pain and suffering.

Buddha expressed it well with his three noble truths: 1) Life is suffering; 2) Experience other people’s suffering as your own; 3) Your work in this world is to eliminate suffering. The people who I am most inspired to coach are the ones with a big dream, together with the willingness to experience personal suffering in its pursuit.

Think George Washington crossing the Delaware with frostbitten feet. Think Abraham Lincoln’s depression after being defeated for his senate bid against Stephen Douglass. Think Nelson Mandela on Robben Island prison in South Africa where he became a symbol of the end of Apartheid.

In developing powerful and profound coaching relationships, first find the dream, second find the pain, third allow yourself to be moved. Yes! I can help.

Leaders in government, business, education, and other domains who have a vision of a brave new world have often wound up frustrated because they cannot manifest the political and economic will to bring transformational change about.

Examples: Woodrow Wilson’s failure to get the United Stated Congress to ratify the League of Nations, Jimmy Carter’s struggles with driving through a national energy policy to relieve us from dependence on Mid East oil, Bill Clinton’s failure to pass a national health care program. The same kind of things happen in corporations every day.

If you want to become an extraordinary leader and an effective change agent, you may discover some invaluable lessons in James MacGreggor Burns new book, “Running Alone.” Burns shows that almost every President from JFK to Ronald Regan and from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush have failed in many respects to achieve their mission because of a phenomenon he calls “narrowing the base.”

Burns point is that for leaders to have an impact, it takes more than getting elected and depending on one faction, such as Bill Clinton did with healthcare reform in depending almost exclusively on liberal Democrats, or as George W. Bush has done with right wing Republicans. As John Naisbitt has pointed out, change doesn’t come from one force pushing on something, but from many forces pushing together.

For a president, CEO, or director of a non profit to bring about transformational change rather than transactional improvement, it requires broad based support from many quarters. Burns points out that the reason FDR was so effective in passing his New Deal legislation was because of the Great Electoral Coalition of 1936 that included Democrats, Southern Republicans, Labor, business and so on.

It is interesting to note that JFK ran his electoral campaign with his family and friends, ignoring the rest of the Democratic Party, with FRK often refusing to help fellow Democrats in their electoral campaigns. As a result, Kennedy was not able to bring in on his long coat tails a powerful Democratic majority in Congress and he ended up having to tread carefully when it came to passing his legislative agenda, such as getting federal aid for education.

Other presidents such as Jimmy Carter, Ronald Regan, Bill Clinton, and even George W. Bush specifically ran as Washington outsiders, which helped to get them elected, but in other ways hampered their effectiveness. In most cases, instead of seeking to broaden their base of support, they narrowed it to a few staunch supporters—left wingers, right wingers, PACS, etc.

For them, taking a stand often looked liked just digging in their heels and thumbing their nose at the opposition. Witness George W. Bushes, “I don’t care what you think” attitude toward the Democrats and his dwindling support for the war on terrorism.

It is my observation that many business leaders suffer from the same problem as our politicians. They get hired as CEO, VP, team leader, or whatever, develop a series of change initiatives, and then rather then creating a broad base of support, they narrow it.

For example, some may say, “If I can get the CEO to support this, these other guys will just have to go along with it; they will have no choice.” Unfortunately for them, rarely does it turn out that way. The CEO is usually politically savvy enough to know not to drive an idea through unless it has the support of the board, executive committee, etc.

Perhaps the underlying lesson is that a visionary leader is not enough, nor is being a top performer who can move mountains through sheer might. Making a difference in your world depends on learning to master the political chessboard. And the first step toward mastery may be to embrace the opposition, especially as change comes not from one force pushing on something, but many forces pushing together.

How to Find a Good Chinese Restaurant

The Chinese have more than 4 billion people, and more restaurants—hundreds of millions not only in China, but in every country in the Global Village. There are several reasons for this: 1) we all love Chinese food and 2) restaurant work, followed by construction, is one of the main vehicles for the Chinese Diaspora—legal and illegal.

Growing up in the Boston area, my parents would take me to a Chinese restaurant once a month or so, and always order the same thing. 1) Mushroom Chow Yoke, 2) Chicago Chow Mien, 2) Beef and Broccoli. After the dishes were served, the customer in those days would take a little of each dish onto one’s plate and then mix them all up like a big mound, which my mother called “Mushy Kushy.”

Then we would kick-it-up a little bit with Duck Sauce and Hot Mustard. As you may know, most of the above dishes are strictly American inventions and not served in China—especially Mushy Kushy style.

Since those days in Boston’s Chinatown, I have become a world traveler to China and other destinations in Asia, which has made me a Chinese food aficionado. I have to say that Chinese food, either in a gourmet restaurant in Shanghai or a New York take-out restaurant compared to food in American restaurants is usually invariable not only very good, but very quick and very cheap to boot.

For example, in the summer I live in Ogunquit, Maine. A pound and a half boiled lobster costs almost $33, and takes almost 20 minutes to cook. By contrast, in Boston’s Chinatown, you can often get three and a quarter pound lobster with ginger scallion for $30. The lobsters are cooked ginger scallion style and often arrive at your table in less than five minutes flat.

The best part is that unlike most American and other ethnic restaurants, I almost never leave a Chinese restaurant thinking, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” – sick to my stomach. I usually walk out of the restaurant feeling strong, healthy, and ready to conquer the world.

As I am often in search of a good Chinese restaurant, I have developed certain selection criteria. My mother’s rule of thumb still holds true today. If there are lots of Chinese people eating there, it is probably a pretty good place.

Ask friends, people on the street: What is best Chinese restaurant in the area? I did this in San Francisco Chinatown and discovered the fabulous R&J Lounge, one of the best Chinese restaurants I have ever been too, featuring the local dish Giant Crab Ginger Scallion.

If you are not in the mood to talk to strangers, select a Chinese restaurant in your area and look at the menu posted on the wall. If they serve things like Lobster Ginger Scallion, Do Meeoow (peapod stems) a delicious vegetable, or Spicy Salty Squid, you have a reasonable chance of being in the right place.

However, before you enter the restaurant, look at the red carpet in the entrance way to the restaurant. Is it clean and new or does it look blackish, gummy and decidedly dirty? If so, turn and walk away and look for another place, as this is a sure sign of a non hygienic environment.

Also watch the attitude. Are the wait persons charming, polite, and at your service, offering a suggestion or two, or too absorbed in cleaning empty tables, rude, and arrogant? There is a small place I like in Boston called “Little Shanghai,” where the owner/wait person not only serves up delicious soup dumplings that squirt when you bite into them (Sha-Lom-Bau), but bows when taking the order or bringing food to the table.

If it’s a take-out restaurant, skip the menu and look in the window. You will usually see Chinese chefs with white paper hats preparing food, which is fine, but if you see someone inserting chemical red die # 3 soaked spare ribs into a grill oven to be used as appetizers, turn and run as fast as your feet will carry you. This is a sure sign of being served Americanized Chinese food and an FDA approved chemical feast.

Ok, here are some of my favorite Chinese restaurants in the Boston area and elsewhere. Each one of these is a cut above every other Chinese restaurant I have eaten in. (Write and let me know some of yours.) Each of these restaurants is as good or better than anything you will find in China.

• Peach Farm Restaurant. Tyler Street in Boston. This is a family favorite of both my brood, as well as many local Chinese. They feature the Lobster Ginger Scallion, Spicy Salty Squid, and Peapod Stems mentioned above.

• Little Shanghai. Boston Chinatown. This is a gem of a restaurant that, like Peach Farm, is in a basement and easy to miss. Try Sha-lom Bau (soup dumplings), fish with brown sauce, baby bok choy with mushroom.

• Little Q Hot Pot Restaurant. Quincy, Ma. This is a great treat. It’s sociable, delicious, and relatively inexpensive (great for a party). Sit down at a table with a hot pot in the middle and you will be served spicy broth or herb broth together with the freshest beef, lamb, noodles, vegetables. Cook the food in your hot pot and then dip it in the condiments. Wow!

• Sichuan Gourmet. Framingham, Ma. This may be the best Chinese restaurants I have been to in the USA, albeit a bit spicy. Try Beef Casserole, the excellent Kung Pao Chicken, sliced hot peppers and pork.

• Uncle Cheungs. Framingham, Ma is just across the street from SG above. I love the Shanghai Meatballs.

• Peking Duck House. Flushing, NY (near Shea Stadium). It is hard to tell you are not in China in Flushing. I found this great Peking duck place while strolling down the street. The Peking duck is served with scallions and pancakes. Yum!

• R&J Lounge, San Francisco. This slightly upscale, but noisy place is a real find. Amazing King Crab Ginger Scallion.

• Din Tai Fong, Taiwan. This is one of Taiwan’s greatest attractions. It is a Dim Sum and Dumpling place that has the lightest, freshest, sublime dumplings you could ever wish for. You order while waiting outside and the superb staff serves you your food the moment you sit down.

To be sure, the “troubles” in Northern Ireland since the Easter Rebellion in 1914 represent one of the most confounding conflicts of our times.

I have been writing that leadership arises in taking a stand that a difference can be made in situations that look difficult or impossible, and until recently, few have risen to the occasion.

But this past month, Ian Paisley, head of the Democratic Unionist Party and Protestant groups, and Gerry Adams, head of Sin Fein and Catholic groups, began face-to-face negotiations that led to a historic breakthrough.

The two announced a breakthrough deal Monday to forge a power-sharing administration by the end of May, a long-elusive goal of peacemaking, since the Good Friday Meetings.

The two foes, who previously negotiated only via third parties, sat across from each other at a table in the main dining room in Stormont Parliamentary Building in Belfast, but reportedly did not shake hands.

The historic icebreaker came on the day that Tony Blair set an “unbreakable” deadline for a Catholic-Protestant administration to be formed. "We're very hopeful that progress can be made," the Sinn Fein Chairwoman Mary Lou McDonald said as the talks began between Paisley (80) and Adams (58)—long sworn, bitter enemies.

If there is any leadership lesson that can be learned from this story, it is that even those who are sworn enemies want to leave a legacy and can thus find it within themselves to subordinate their egos to a higher cause.

Perhaps another lesson is that all the posturing and defensiveness that goes on in the absence of communication accomplishes little, while if we sit down and talk to someone we might rather avoid, we often accomplish a lot.

Also sitting down face-to-face - however distasteful the idea may be -  is a much better way to resolve conflict than going through a third party.