The Foreign Service Journal, September 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2014 19 Is the work of the Foreign Service so easilymastered without special training or apprenticeship? (2) Abolition of the “senior thresh- old,” which is largely meaningless in the Foreign Service assignment pro- cess. Many senior positions are filled by more junior officers on “stretch” assign- ments. These are usually officers who have been promoted quickly and are— ironically—most likely to be thinned out early because so few can make it to the top. Requiring such officers to compete for nominally senior status is demeaning and irrelevant; they will either be promoted into more senior rank or not. (3) Continued selection-out, but only for serious breaches of discipline or provable errors. (4) Substantial intake at the mid- level of capable specialists to meet new or unexpected shortages, as and if they arise. (5) Continued tailoring of Foreign Service generalist promotions to the flow-through desired, but without presenting the criteria as foolproof or scientific. They can change as needs evolve. Law firms, universities, the media and other comparable profes- sions also have hierarchies, but they do not struggle to maintain perfect pyramids in their organizations. They recognize that numerical bulges of experienced seniors below the top