Foreign Service Journal - October, 2009

FS KNOW-HOW ;

as PAOs, IOs and CAOs, I also read evaluations for non-PD officers serving in what should be “plum” PD Washington-based jobs. For example, non-PD officers seem to be staffing the National Security Council Press Office. And over the past decade, they have also occupied top staff jobs in the Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and in the Bureau of Public Affairs.

While abandoning public diplomacy as a cone is one possible approach, I would instead recommend that we get our act together and become more competitive with the other cones. So here are some practical suggestions for my PD-cone colleagues.

• Get yourself some out-of-cone experience in the mid-grades. You will need it as your career advances.

• Despite the discouragements, go after those DCM and PO positions.

• Make sure your Employee Profile (what we old-timers still call our Personnel Audit Report, or PAR) is correct and up-to-date, no matter how much effort it takes. Check it every spring for accuracy. The promotion panel uses printouts of the profile for everything from jotting down notes from your EERs, to jogging their memories about your career when the board holds discussions, to checking for hardship postings and language skills.

• Rating and reviewing officers should give subordinates strong recommendations for promotion. Avoid any ambiguity. Don’t write, “I recommend this officer for promotion at the first opportunity,” but “I recommend this officer for immediate promotion.” This explicit recommendation was not necessary when we were USIA officers, but it is part of State culture and is essential now.

PD officers are
operating at a real
disadvantage vis-à-vis
their counterparts in
terms of supervisory
responsibility.

• Now that I’ve served on the threshold panel, there is no question in my mind that PD officers are being disadvantaged by a failure of senior leadership. Of course, with six under secretaries for public diplomacy in 10 years, including long periods with no one in place, how could it be otherwise? And even when there is an effective leader in R, he or she is usually focused on policy issues, not pursuing career enhancement for PD-cone officers.

Steps for State Leadership

Unlike other cones, there are few if any jobs in Washington for PD FSOs to encumber. The Bureau of Consular Affairs relies heavily on career consular officers to fill senior slots. Management officers are natural fits for the Office of the Under Secretary for Management, the Administration Bureau and the executive offices of all regional and functional bureaus. And political and economic officers dominate the regional bureaus, as well as the offices of the under secretaries for political and economic affairs and certain functional bureaus. But where do public diplomacy officers go?

Slots that seem like they should be “reserved” for PD officers, such as public diplomacy positions in PA and at the National Security Council, frequently (dare I say usually) go to officers in other cones. Moreover, the political appointees in the under secretary’s office and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs tend to bring in other political appointees to fill staff jobs. They are also willing to take officers from any cone to serve on their staffs.

The remaining PD senior jobs are few and far between, which results in PD officers at the FS- 1 level and above being shoehorned into jobs on the Board of Examiners, in the Office of the Inspector General and similar offices. Thus, mid- and senior-level PD officers find it particularly difficult to get the high-level PD Washington experience they need.

Some leadership on the part of senior FSOs who want to help level the playing field for PD officers could go a long way. First and foremost, more senior-level jobs need to be created for senior PD officers. The cone needs a path that does not crash and burn at the FS- 1 level when PD officers begin to be non-competitive for senior jobs. Here are some specific suggestions:

• The under secretary should choose PD-cone officers to fill senior- and mid-level staff positions in R.

• Confer (finally) assistant-secretary rank on the head of the International Information Programs Bureau. Then fill the position with a career officer, and make sure the deputy assistant secretaries are also PD officers. Titles are important. Board members understand what a deputy assistant secretary does — but a coordinator?