The Foreign Service Journal, October 2009

44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 9 policy experiences that they would have had in a separate agency. • Senior PD officers may not be bidding as strategically as traditional State officers. One senior PD officer relates the following experience: “Having been out of Washington since the Warren Christopher years [1993- 1997], I didn’t have a clue as to how the senior assignment process worked. So I bid on a few DCM positions based entirely on family concerns. Much to my surprise and delight, I was short-listed for the only position that met all the cri- teria for my family. I wouldn’t have known what to do at that point if ‘Executive Women @ State’ hadn’t put to- gether a session on getting senior-level jobs. I then threw myself into lobbying, and guess what? The two people I was told to lobby didn’t answer my e-mails or return my phone calls. The lack of feedback and transparency will probably keep me from bidding on DCM jobs the next time around.” PD officers who are serving as ambassadors generally agree that the following characteristics or experiences helped them: Being a team player, working hard, making tough decisions to promote U.S. national interests, acting independently and showing good judgment, being able to communicate complex issues to the public and within the department, managing staffs and using foreign languages. Prospects for Mid-Level Practitioners We asked these same senior individuals to comment on how they view career prospects for the next generation of public diplomacy officers. Based on their comments, and extrapolating from HR/RMA’s statistics, we foresee a siz- able crop of PD deputy chiefs and chiefs of mission in the coming years. First of all, newer PD officers have learned to seek out-of-cone and Washington assignments. Already, half the staff in the Operations Center are PD-cone, and pub- lic diplomacy officers are landing other good interfunc- tional jobs, although not yet in proportion with our numbers. Embedding PD operations within the larger geographic bureaus has helped those officers become part of the pol- icy team. Some public diplomacy officers have gained pol- icy experience and visibility within the larger geographic bureaus, but other bureaus still maintain a separation. One senior PD officer com- ments, “I have been extremely im- pressed with those [PD officers] with whom I interact in my current position. They now quite routinely engage fellow FSOs from other cones, including the most senior of- ficers in the department, and in my experience do so with as much skill and confidence as FSOs from any other cone. They clearly see themselves as fully integrated into the bureau’s opera- tion, and see that their talents are very much recognized and appreciated. In general, they have moved well be- yond any sense that they are ‘outsiders’ or in any way not full members of the team. “My sense is that PD officers, especially to the extent that they are prepared to delve into and commit them- selves to working extensively on hard issues under chal- lenging circumstances, will be able to demonstrate the kinds of skills and experience needed to gain such senior policy assignments.” One thing that might hurt mid-level officers is that they are not managing the large staffs and facilities that PD of- ficers were a decade ago. But the lack of our own staffs and facilities means that we work more closely with gen- eral services officers and other embassy sections, honing our negotiating, persuasion and teamwork talents. Entry-level public diplomacy officers have the same problem as their peers in other tracks: they must wait a tour or two before working in their chosen career track. ELOs are impatient to do the work they joined the Serv- ice to do. But assuming the new hires persevere and fol- low the path set by current mid-level officers, they should be able to rise to unprecedented heights and in unprece- dented numbers — if they can gain the necessary Wash- ington work experience. Clouds on the Horizon? Even as we predict a rosy future for mid-level and entry-level PD officers, we have some concerns. • There is still the issue of PDwork being undervalued. This is evident in the promotion statistics, where few pub- lic diplomacy officers are promoted in the classwide pool. It is also evident in how frequently political and economic officers get PD assignments as consolation prizes. F O C U S Encouragingly, newer public diplomacy officers have learned to seek out-of-cone and Washington assignments.