The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2012

16 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 2 terms of being able to pay the bills,” Coburn explained. “It is a new day and it’s really important that our leaders, such as you all, understand that we are going to be under very constricted resources for the next 20 years in this country.” To add insult to injury, Coburn cited a January 2011 Government Accountability Office report that criticized some aspects of State De- partment training as cause not to go forward. “It’s one thing to ramp up,” he said. “It’s the other thing to ramp up without proper training ... and also the proper controls on the training.” In fact, the GAO report — Additional Steps Are Needed to Improve Strategic Planning and Evaluation of Training for State Personnel (www.gao.gov/assets/320/ 315137.pdf) — presents a much more nuanced view of the Foreign Service Institute’s performance in training Foreign Service personnel. The GAO found that the State Department had “taken many steps to incorporate the interrelated elements of an effective training program” including developing an “an- nual training plan, and implementing a range of training evaluation mechanisms and a learning management sys- tem that can be used to track training delivery.” But GAO also argued that State didn’t do enough to ensure that training was improving the performance of its employees in the field. Specifically, GAO said that State lacked a “systematic, comprehensive training needs as- sessment process incorporating all bureaus and overseas posts” and that “State’s performance measures for training generally do not fully address training goals, and are gen- erally output - rather than outcome -oriented.” While the November elections may usher in a new Congress with more interest in improving American diplomacy, continued gridlock seems a more likely out- come. Already, the scope of Diplomacy 3.0 has been cur- tailed, particularly with regard to Foreign Service training. State and USAID have been forced to concentrate on staving off large reductions in their budgets rather than seeking new resources. Critical as funding is, it is also important for State and USAID to broaden their thinking about the distinction between professional education and training. A crucial step would be to shift the current emphasis on training as an ad hoc process focused on prep- ping staff for each new assignment. Instead, the Foreign Service must make professional education an in- tegral, ongoing part of each em- ployee’s career development. “The Last Place to Cut” Despite Sen. Coburn’s skepti- cism about the quality of State De- partment training, Foreign Service Institute Director Ruth Whiteside believes the record supports calls for additional resources, not fewer. “Train- ing is the last place you cut, rather than the first,” she says. (See page 32 for an in-depth interview with her.) FSI’s offerings include 600 classroom courses and more than 200 classes that employees can take online. Training starts with orientation and extends through ad- vanced classes on tradecraft, with subjects ranging from managing an embassy to doing political and economic reporting and using information technology. New of- ferings focus on promoting human rights and democ- racy, cultivating supervisory and leadership skills for entry-level staff, and understanding the roles of different agencies in national security. Because the Foreign Service’s duties have expanded in wartorn and increasingly dangerous parts of the world, Whiteside has pushed for more course offerings in stabil- ity operations, area studies and negotiating techniques. And recognizing that State employees must often work with other agencies, she has tapped the expertise of the General Services Administration and the Defense Acqui- sitions University to bring in or purchase training on gov- ernmentwide issues like human resources, acquisitions and federal budgeting. For future leaders, she’s championed the National Se- curity Executive Leadership Seminar, a 10-day class in which State Department employees and peers from other agencies study U.S. national security strategy, critical chal- lenges to American interests and the leadership skills needed for success in the interagency policy implemen- tation process. Foreign Service employees can also pursue long-term professional education opportunities beyond FSI, whether at the defense war colleges, private universities such as Princeton and Tufts, or think-tanks like the Hoover Institution and the Center for Strategic and In- F OCUS State and USAID are now focused on staving off large budget cuts rather than seeking new resources for training.