The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2015 43 Asian and Pacific Affairs, to create a “full-time organization which supports and incubates innovative projects.” This feedback helped shape our proposal to establish a hub for data, diagnostics and design to increase our capacity to find, filter and leverage information throughout our operations. A space has been assigned for this hub, which will provide the equivalent of a garage for a startup tech company. The team coming together there will pilot ways to translate massive amounts of information into timely, user-friendly tools for decision-makers. This is not about replacing relationships with robotics— quite the opposite. It is about using technology and informa- tion management to free those in the field to spend more time engaging directly with people. As Sec. Kerry told our chiefs of mission at their recent worldwide conference: “We must understand the force of Twitter, but it will never replace a handshake.” Better data and diagnostics will inform and amplify our work in the field, by helping diplomacy and devel- opment professionals respond more efficiently to taskings from Washington and thereby freeing us to develop and cultivate contacts outside the embassy. 2. Work, Families and Personal Life Creating a more nimble organization also means recognizing changes in the broader culture. Dual-career marriages are increasingly the norm; many of us are taking on responsibility for aging parents; and smart phones too often mean there is no such thing as “outside the office.” Lisa Kyriienko, a construction executive in the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, won the QDDR Sounding Board Challenge with 174 votes for her well-reasoned argument that “A strong State Department needs strong families,” which led to a digital videoconference with Special Representative Tom Perriello. As Kyriienko noted: If we do not address the challenge of spousal employment, we “risk losing many qualified officers— male and female—who find that in our modern world, few spouses are willing to sacrifice the potential of a career” to follow their partners around the world for 20 years. With this in mind, we came up with a plan to expand top-level departmental support for the excellent, but understaffed, Family Liaison Office and its Global Employment Initiative, which currently has just 16 global employment advisers for 12,000 eligible family members. The QDDR will also facilitate greater career flexibility for employees who need to address family, health or educational needs through a new Career Break program that allows them to take extended leave while still maintaining their career. Taking proper care of one’s mental and physical health is vital in any line of work, and good managers understand that. The QDDR contains recommendations for increasing resilience training to help people navigate a full career that will likely include some challenging posts. It also proposes increased support for wellness committees at overseas posts, as well as travel to posts by medical personnel to confer with those committees when necessary. 3. Agility, Innovation and Risk During the QDDR’s discovery phase, our team heard repeatedly from frontline diplomats and development profes- sionals about the urgent need to address increasingly complex physical risks around the world. Indeed, there are few, if any, countries where our personnel face no security threats at all. Regrettably, such threats are inherent to performing our duties in the post-9/11 era, but a new risk management framework, created by the Office of Management Policy, Rightsizing and Innovation under the under secretary for management, will be invaluable as the department begins carrying out the QDDR’s proposal for a senior-level agility review. State and USAID need to implement a standard approach for managing and mitigating risks, and Sec. Kerry is beginning a dialogue with Congress and the American people about how to get this balance right. To do our work well, we must get into the field and work with local contacts; but as organizations, State and USAID must balance this imperative with security needs. Many of our colleagues feel that this balance needs to be readjusted. I can attest to this dilemma firsthand. As a public affairs officer in Jamaica, I was planning to visit an NGO that had received an embassy grant to educate young people about preventing HIV/AIDS. Because the group operated in a Doing our job right is not just about encouraging agility and engagement, but fostering innovation.