SPEAKING
OUT
Service by putting our best people into
positions where they can make a bigger
difference sooner rather than later, and
motivating them to stay in the Service,
knowing that their hard work is more
likely to be rewarded.
Such a system would also spur a
healthy dialogue among rated, rating
and reviewing officers over how to
compare performances. Ideally, reviewing officers would base their grading on fair and transparent metrics
that would spur virtuous competition
among those being reviewed.
A potential complaint about instituting a “hard grading” system is that it
would unfairly penalize missions, sections or offices that tend to attract a disproportionately large number of high
performers. This is a valid concern,
one also faced by elite military units like
the Army’s Rangers or F- 15 fighter
squadrons in the Air Force. Neither
service, however, makes exceptions to
limits on top grades for so-called “elite
units,” yet this does not spell ruin for
excellent officers who fail to obtain a
top score every time. In such cases, the
senior reviewer’s short narrative is crucial to contextualizing the absence of a
top grade.
And after all, if the officers of a particular unit really are elite, they will receive a disproportionate share of top
grades when they are transferred to
other “non-elite” units. The same pattern would likely hold true for the Foreign Service.
The current EER system reflects
and exacerbates the conflict-averse
managerial culture of the Foreign Service. By not forcing senior officers to
rank subordinates, it essentially randomizes who gets promoted each year.
Without a strong link between performance and promotions, the Foreign
Service has learned to use other ways
to identify top performers, such as an
officer’s assignment history and “
corridor reputation.” But those are neither
as efficient nor as fair as an evaluation
system that actually does its job. If we
are serious about the “War for Talent,”
it is high time we made EERs more relevant to the promotion process. ■
Jonathan Fritz, an economic officer in
Beijing, entered the Foreign Service in
1993. He has served in China, Latin
America and Washington, D.C.
