The Foreign Service Journal, May 2013

24 MAY 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL as the State Department, that have powerful vertical hierarchies; a strong and deeply ingrained culture that is often self-referential, inward-looking and lacking clear measures of success; a system of discipline that offers few rewards for suc- cessful risk-taking, but lots of punishment if initiative leads to failure; and entry based on a complex examination system that does not recognize contem- porary conditions. Our State Department panel debated the relative value of current recruitment measures, such as the Foreign Service exam, lateral entry, specialized programs for minorities, etc. While individual members may have preferred one approach over another, there was a consensus that the recruitment base must be quickly and innovatively rethought. We suggested bolder, more targeted ties to external sources of innovation and diversity, and internal reforms to reward new ideas and promote deeper, more practical knowledge. State should emulate successful private firms by aggressively recruiting innovative young people through targeted intern- ships to identify top candidates, especially those who use social media successfully. And just as the Foreign Service Institute can teach anyone Spanish or embassy management, it should be able to teach anyone how to improve their cultural competence, and to nurture their innovative spirits. There is no silver bullet to meet the challenges of double diversity, but forward-looking leadership can make a huge difference. Just look at the pathbreaking steps State has already taken in regard to women, both in terms of substantive issues of special importance to women and high-level appointments. Diversity, Innovation and Transformative Inclusion To prioritize diversity, organizations like the State Depart- ment must think boldly, beyond the legacy paradigms of “affir- mative action,” “diversity” or “inclusion.” The first bold step is to recognize that, whatever we call these baskets of activities and attitudes, at this point in American his- tory they are mission-critical. The second bold step is to accept why they are mission-crit- ical: not for ethical and legal reasons alone; nor simply because we are experiencing a substantial overall labor shortage for highly skilled employees of all types. They are essential because we need to hire people with brand-new portfolios of talents, whose diverse perspectives can challenge and change for the better our traditional ways of thinking and acting. And we need to give this new talent the leeway to do so. Third, we need to aggressively pursue change agents. We need to hire the impa- tient, the different. We need to bring in employees with distinc- tive emotional intelligences and different kinds of traditional intelligences, with different professional backgrounds and complementary strengths. Finally, ethnic diversity by itself is not enough. We also need all new employees to be culturally competent and able to negotiate important differences; to be respectful of both tradi- tion and transition; and to be able to minimize the inevitable frictions that will occur. Creating a diverse, inclusive organizational culture requires training in cultural competence for everyone. Moving Forward Moving forward, we should hire people with diverse per- spectives not just to help them be more like us, but to help us and our organizations be more like them . There must be a bal- ance between acculturating employees enough to make them effective, but not so much that all their creativity, innovation and different perspectives are diluted. To get a better idea of the required approach, ask yourself this question: If you were inventing the U.S. diplomatic service from scratch in today’s world, what would it look like? Wouldn’t there be more bridges between the department and other stakeholders in society? Wouldn’t we recruit more people with science and technology backgrounds? Wouldn’t we have a more ethnically diverse Civil and Foreign Service? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, our new global and local conditions require a new kind of leadership. These chal- lenges for success place huge responsibilities and demands on the shoulders of today’s leaders. Engaging double diversity, through cultural competence, to achieve innovative, transformative inclusion, is not easy. It’s a messy process filled with experiments that will succeed, and others that will fail. It is a challenge, but what an exciting, timely and hugely important one! n There is no silver bullet to meet the challenges of double diversity, but forward-looking leadership can make a huge difference.