THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2018 23 Diversity: Not Just a Cause for the Underrepresented BY ANONYMOUS The author’s identity is being withheld at their request. A colleague, who recently served as international narcotics and law enforcement director at an overseas post, described for me a typical situation in her host country. While meeting with beneficiaries of a program to improve police and youth relationships, the men in the room did all the talking. Once the session was over, however, many of the youth and their mothers approached her separately and revealed additional details about the program’s success and shortfalls. Many of the beneficiaries felt uncomfortable sharing their views within the group. My colleague quickly learned she could connect to the female beneficiaries as a fellow mother and sister, and glean important information about how this $9 million project was being implemented. Many civil servants, specialists and other officers have had similar experiences, where their common gender, ethnicity, religion or shared background facilitated an encounter that directly enhanced their work. To the degree that we build diverse teams to carry out our work, we increase our access and efficacy as a department. Diverse Teams Are More Successful The value of diverse teams in the private sector is virtually uncontested. A 2015 study by McKinsey & Company found that companies in the top quartile of ethnic diversity were as much as 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their national industry median, while companies that were less diverse were more likely to lag behind their industry median. A 2013 study in the Harvard Business Review found that a team with a member who shares a client’s ethnicity is 152 percent likelier than another team to understand that client. In other words, simply being on a team with members who share traits with your client increases your likelihood of better understanding them. The implications for U.S. foreign policy are significant: Few countries have as diverse a population as the United States. This unique advantage places the United States and the State Department in an enviable position to assemble, in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s words, “the world’s finest diplomatic corps.” Other global powers like China and Russia, even some of our European allies, staff their foreign ministries from more homogenous populations. Where private-sector companies compete with one another to attract diverse candidates to give them an edge, the State Department sits unrivaled by other governments in our potential to recruit SPEAKING OUT and assemble a diverse foreign policy powerhouse—if we put the resources into recruiting diverse candidates. As section heads, office directors, management counselors, human resource specialists, deputy chiefs of mission and ambassadors, we have a vested interest in assembling and leading successful teams. If we do not recruit a diverse pool of new officers and ensure we have a diverse corps of senior staff leading the department, we cannot continue to build the experiences to maintain and grow this competitive edge. As employees, we should all want to serve on teams that have the highest probability of success. From an organizational perspective, diversity is not just about equity and fairness; it is foremost about performance and results. Each of us should feel compelled to be part of a diverse organization, regardless of our ethnicity, gender or background. Recognizing Your Place on a Diverse Team Individuals who question how they fit into a diverse workplace should remember that the value of diversity is not in an individual’s race, gender or ethnicity; it is in the experiences and insights that those attributes often bring. Diversity may refer to innate characteristics, but While I support diversity efforts, I also harbored concerns that diversity programs at State were (intentionally or not) designed to ensure there were fewer people like me in offices and missions abroad.
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