The Foreign Service Journal, June 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2022 29 take action on.This office is about action. I’m urging everyone within the department to take the survey when it comes out in the next couple of weeks. And recognize that your answers to these questions are leading to specific steps in response.This is a very action-oriented survey, and it gets after the inclusion piece. AFSA: Can you talk a little bit about how you’ve been challenging our bureaucracy? We’ve worked with you on core precepts, but how else are you challenging our bureaucracy? CDIO: There’s a lot of work to do. Many of our workforce understand just how opaque this organization is. I know where all the rocks are to pull up and poke at underneath. And so, too, do my staff. We ask questions. One of the things that we are going to be spending part of our budget on is working with other bureaus who have ownership over parts of the FAM [Foreign Affairs Manual] to reflect the changes that have already happened and are going to happen—to put it in black and white. So everybody knows exactly what’s happening where and why. One of the things that has changed in the last year is publicizing who’s on the D Committee, the DCM and Principal Officer Committee, and the Executive Resources Board, which covers the Civil Ser- vice. Many of us didn’t know. When you’re looking for one of those high-powered, high- level positions, how do you go about getting it? There are a number of things that are quite opaque, or have been, that we are trying to shine a bright light on. And this goes again to the inclusion piece. This is how I am able to increasingly melt down the resistance I find from those for whom the current system has worked, or those who think the current system is going to work for them. If you see that over 60 percent of the senior positions are going to white men, well, you might not want to change that, because that’s pretty good odds for you [as a white man] in this organiza- tion. But if you also recognize that those who get those jobs come from a pretty narrow band of folks who’ve had the “right” jobs, who’ve done the seventh-floor jobs, worked in this particular mission, or know that person in that position, and you don’t have the same access to it, you understand that greater transparency is going to help you regardless of your background. And this is strong. This is important for all of us. Who’s on those committees? Who do you need to talk to? How does the D Committee work? How does the vetting work? All of these things go to transparency. As we make those changes, shining that bright light, we are leveling the playing field for everyone. The vast majority of us can understand and recognize and support the inclusion that those changes will bring about. Everything we do is focused on improv- ing this organization for everyone in it. Not just brown people, not just people with disabilities, or gay people, or women. This work is for all of us. AFSA: You’ve laid out a really great sense of what the work is, what the challenges are. What are you looking forward to being able to say you accomplished? CDIO: Before I took the job, colleagues in the private sector told me the work is heavy and hard. But even after I leave, and this particular cohort of brilliant officers doing the work in the office leaves, the work will continue. I think my definition of suc- cess is that the office shuts down. That it is so well embedded in our culture that you don’t need a special office to look at these things. But we are needed now to put the foundation in place. I think we will continue to attract top-notch officers to this office as we have so far, for a couple of reasons. Most importantly, this is one of the places in the building where you are going to be able to see the changes you’re working for. We’re seeing things change almost on a daily basis from this office. We have so much in the pipeline. Again, the strategic plan is laid out, the blueprint, and then the work has to be built out, driven forward. It’s going to make us better diplomats to do this work right. We’ll continue to get great people to carry out this work; and at some point, it’s going to sunset. We don’t want to be talking about this 10 years from now or, God forbid, 20 or 30 years from now. We’ve been talking about this for far too long. The challenges are many because nobody likes change. I did this whole course on being a change agent. It was a reminder tome that everyone who is a drag on the change that we need tomake isn’t in that position because of animus or ill will. Sometimes it’s just that change is more work, and people don’t want more work, or they understand the system as it is. We have to be incredibly agile and informed and knowledgeable, and willing to look into all of the nooks and crannies to understand the law andmake sure As we make those changes, shining that bright light, we are leveling the playing field for everyone.