The Foreign Service Journal, February 2004

turn that into an institutional capabili- ty to meet those challenges by making the most of their talents. That will allow us to respond to future crises, to fill hard-to-fill posts, and to have bet- ter training for our personnel. Because we have been strapped for resources and personnel for so long, we’ve had to prepare people in the Foreign Service serially. You learn a language to go somewhere and do something. Then some other job comes up and you learn the skills to go there and do that. In a university, when you graduate, you’re supposed to be capable in both your major and your minor. Why not have people in the Foreign Service, once they have developed areas of emphasis, keep current in those areas throughout the course of their careers? For general- ists that might be language study, and for specialists it might be professional training or area studies. The depart- ment then would be able to organize a response more quickly and more effectively than it’s ever done before. FSJ : You mentioned the idea of having people who keep up their cre- dentials and their current professional knowledge to be able to respond to sudden crises. Is that what you mean by the term “surge capacity? WRP : That’s part of it. Another part is the key role for FSI, where people are going to receive addition- al training, particularly professional development. Much of this is really an extension of what the Secretary already has begun with leadership and management courses, and what FSI has done with its language continuum and professional development cours- es. It would help us to identify ahead of time a larger pool of people who could respond. They would have had the conversations they need to have well ahead of time, and would know they’d be on call. Finally, we’d have less concern about whether some bureaus could give up people so that the crisis-affected bureau could take advantage of their skills. FSJ : We’ve touched on languages several times. I understand you have proposed encouraging all personnel to maintain fluency in at least two for- eign languages. WRP : Yes. The Foreign Affairs Manual only requires fluency in one foreign language. Why not have two? Our people are capable of it. When I came into office, I asked for a random survey of something like 200 to 250 employee records. Of those, 90 per- cent of the people had served in at least two geographic bureaus. Seventy percent of the public diplo- macy officers in the sample were qualified in two languages, as were 60 percent of political officers, nearly 60 percent of the economic officers, 45 percent of the consular officers, and 30 percent of the management offi- cers. It seems to me that we already have a fairly strong foundation and that many of the things that were already being done were going in that direction. So why not let our reach exceed our grasp a little and bring ourselves up to the level of quality response that we’re capable of? I’ve talked to some of my friends who are specialists, and from their standpoint they might prefer more intense pro- fessional training over acquiring a sec- ond language. All these things would have to be addressed, and I’m not try- ing to give people the answers as much as to raise the questions. But I think for the future we face, these are the kinds of aspirations that the State Department and the Foreign Service need to have. FSJ : How would you counter the long-standing perception that time spent in language training is not “career-enhancing”? WRP : Well, let’s see. I had Chinese, French and Turkish, so I would cite myself, and a lot of other people with similar experiences, as evidence to the contrary. It’s true that when I came into the Foreign Service I took two years of Chinese early on. Some people told me that it might slow me down in the promotion race. But, in fact, it didn’t affect my career progress at all. I also would note that it helped me develop an interest, which I have maintained throughout my career. I think that when people prove during language or other stud- ies at FSI that they are strongly moti- vated, it shows up in other areas of their lives as well. I think we need to get past the point where training is seen as something different from our careers. Training is actually an essen- tial part of what we should be. And frankly I think that this is going to become more evident for us over time, just as it already has in the armed services and in some of the other agencies operating overseas today. FSJ : How do you plan to work with AFSA in implementing your goals? WRP : I already have raised infor- 52 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 4 Thanks to Secretary Powell’s initiative, the president’s commitment, and Congress’s support, we have brought the Foreign Service back to a state of health after many, many years.