The Foreign Service Journal, February 2006

after the 9/11 attacks. After all, consular associates were not responsible for issuing visas to the 9/11 hijackers: other government agencies’ refusal to share information with the Department of State was the culprit. I suggest the department take a fresh look at the program with a view to upgrading it and providing greater oversight and accountability. It may still be too soon after 9/11 to start consulting with Congress or sharing options with the public, but it is not too early to start an internal discussion/working group to anticipate the future. Visas are the grease of a global economy. Career Development McKinsey zeroes in on several issues dear to my AFSA heart, beginning with implementing the new Career Development Program. McKinsey praises the CDP, but warns that the department must enforce the require- ments that AFSA and management so painstakingly negotiated. There is a key sentence in the report I could not have written better myself: “The department should assign accountability for meeting these targets ... to the geographic bureaus.” Clearly, the consultants share my concern that when a bureau pushes its own candidate at the expense of qualified bidders seeking to fulfill the CDP’s requirements, “the department’s leaders must be willing to overrule bureau staffing decisions.” I plan to stay healthy and live long enough to see how faithfully management sticks to the terms of the agree- ment. And I’ll continue to pay my dues so AFSA will have the money to staff our labor management office with attorneys who can file grievances in those cases where management caves in to bureaus’ rejection of such bidders. McKinsey’s report spends more time on one subject than any other: giving mid-level employees their due. This issue was dear to my predecessor’s heart. John Naland, whom I succeeded as the AFSA VP for State, cared about mid-level employees and felt they were con- sistently given short shrift, both in terms of training opportunities and substantive assignments. Throughout his time with AFSA (both as State vice president and president), John sent management a stream of innovative suggestions on how this talent could be trained and groomed to mentor entry-level employees and succeed in crossing the threshold. His concerns were prescient. A 2004 survey of entry- level employees found that after “family-life issues,” the quality of supervisors and managers was the most-cited drawback to an FS career. When asked what was the most important thing the department could do to retain them, the most often-cited answer was “improving the quality of supervisors and management.” (Close behind was “Give me more challenging assignments/greater responsibility.”) I am therefore encouraged that McKinsey sees the commitment of middle-level managers to leading and nurturing their people as the driver of employee morale and productivity. Toward that end, it calls on the depart- ment to provide more coaching, training and mentoring to enable them to become better managers of people. The report also singles out something I can relate to in my last assignment, a brief stint in a geographic bureau — the need to provide challenging work. I saw first-hand the lack of top-down communication regarding how staff work supports the department’s mission. There was too much mind-numbing struggle for clearances of letters, memoranda, etc., on the least controversial of subjects. I certainly appreciate the need for myriad clearances on issues of high policy — North Korea’s nuclear program, for example. But multiple clearances for letters replying to school children’s inquiries? AFSA’s mid-level mem- bers can provide countless examples of how the depart- ment fails to empower its experienced, seasoned officers. Several of these issues require negotiations with AFSA, such as changes to the evaluation process and to assign- ment procedures, and implementation/enforcement of the Career Development Program. Other matters, such as the importance of leaders’ communicating with subordinates, etc., do not require AFSA’s concurrence, but I believe they would be profitably addressed from the association’s bully pulpit. Almost 80 percent of State’s Foreign Service employees are members, and they can provide valuable insights — if the department will listen. What Is “Transformational Diplomacy”? McKinsey’s study highlights, but unfortunately does not offer solutions for, a problem I warned about before I left office: finding qualified people for difficult-to-staff posts, which I refer to as 3-D work: dirty, difficult and dangerous. There are currently 15 unaccompanied posts with 700 positions, in countries too dangerous for families, and the number will only grow. On top of that, half of all posts F O C U S 42 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 6