The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

34 JULY-AUGUST 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL reports must be produced to enable Washington’s ever-escalat- ing efforts to micromanage every aspect of overseas operations. Both the micromanagement and the endless document produc- tion escalate workload. All three of these phenomena are closely intertwined with one issue that is mentioned in the report: the extreme proliferation of special envoys, coordinators and representatives. One of the consequences of numerous special functionaries is that each such official generally feels the need to call for the development of plans, reports, strategies, conference calls, digital videoconferences, etc., on their special topic with drastic consequences for staff workload, but much less clear benefits for advancing the topic being studied. The AAD report seems focused on the impact of these special representatives on the authority of the traditional bureaus and the career paths of more senior FSOs. More important, in my view, is the role of these offices in escalating staff workload while also diffusing accountability, blurring lines of authority and, in many cases, making it difficult to get the real job done. —A USAID FSO One Team? W hile I agree with much of this report, particularly the recommendations to have career diplomats at our highest ranks and to rein in the number of political appointees, as an FS-4 Office Management Specialist I found the paragraph on page 11 dismissing the specialist corps demoralizing. Twenty-three recommendations, and not one addresses the “vital role” specialists play in creating the underpinnings that allow diplomacy practitioners to do their jobs. It’s especially disappointing because many of the recommendations that apply to FSOs could easily be applied to specialists. For example: Recommendations 12, 12a, 12b, 13 (especially since specialists often supervise many more people, earlier in their careers, than FSOs) and 21. I disagree with Recommendation 10a regarding modify- ing the FS entry exam to balance knowledge fundamental to diplomacy with currently desired skill sets and a commitment to diversity; true diversity is more than just demographics. You need diversity in background and thought to ensure that our offi- cers truly represent America and have the capacity to perform the varied jobs officers perform around the world. Not every officer needs to be the next George Kennan, so crafting a test that eliminates all but those who have an in-depth knowledge of “American political and economic history, culture, politics and international relations” diminishes our diversity. The knowledge that is fundamental to diplomacy can be learned. The entry exam already does a good job of bringing in the brightest people with well-rounded knowledge—now, let’s teach them how to be diplomats. Recommendation 10, to lower the maximum age for entry to 45, goes against other reported goals to ensure that the Foreign Service is “committed to diversity” and wants people who come into the Service with a “wide range of work experience.” I guess those who want to use the expertise they’ve gained in previous employment to further the State Department’s mission should just forget it. Or might this be a way of reducing the number of retiredmilitary veterans, who receive preference points to join the Service? I also disagree with Recommendation 6b to merge the conversion programs for the sake of “efficiency and transpar- ency.” Different career mobility programs meet different needs. Some specify that you compete against a like employee category; others, such as the Mustang program, do not make that distinc- tion. Presumably, if a specialist and a civil servant applied to the Mustang program at the same time, they would compete against each other, negating the need to level the playing field. One can only assume that AAD would like to see a restric- tion on the opportunities available to proven employees to join the officer ranks in favor of someone who joins from outside of the State Department. It would seem that AAD assumes that every specialist who wants to convert used their entry as a Foreign Service specialist as a backdoor to becoming an FSO, rather than assuming that capable people might actually “The ever-growing stream of plans, studies, reviews, strategies and reports must be produced to enable Washington’s ever-escalating efforts to micromanage every aspect of overseas operations.” — A USAID FSO