The Crisis at State is Deeper than We Admit

By: Dan Spokojny, July 16, 2021

A new report by Constanza Castro Zúñiga, Mojib Ghaznawi, and Caroline Kim, published by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, highlights the retention crisis at the State Department.

An eye-opening survey conducted by a team of graduate students at Harvard Kennedy School finds that about a third of foreign service officers are planning on quitting the State Department. The authors identify a number of solutions, including updated leave policies, increased work opportunities for spouses, and an improved job assignment system. All good ideas, but these are band aids.

As a former foreign service officer and long-time professional observer of the Department of State, I believe the crisis is deeper than many are willing to admit. While articles, reports, and opinion pieces on the State Department’s dysfunction could fill a bookshelf (here, here, here, here, here, here…), too often our leaders focus on the symptoms of the organizational challenges. Such an approach risks minimizing the scale of the problem and the transformation needed to save the oldest cabinet agency from further decline. The root of the problem is a dysfunctional culture that is not designed to learn and adapt. This culture afflicts not simply employee satisfaction, but also the quality of our foreign policy.

I believe at least three interrelated factors are undermining morale, driving top talent to the private sector, and harming the ability of the State Department to produce exceptional management policy and foreign policy: disempowerment, diversity and merit challenges, and questionable impact.

A top-heavy decision-making process disempowers careerists

Most early and mid-career professionals are excluded from meaningful strategic-level debates, and even many experienced officials have limited responsibility in their roles. During the Obama administration, which was more supportive of the Department of State than most, the White House was described by the Washington Post as “overbearing... insisting on controlling even the smallest policy details, often at the expense of timely and effective decisions.” Further, most high-profile leadership and Embassy jobs are reserved for political appointees, creating a glass ceiling for careerists. Disempowerment creates a negative feedback loop where long-serving careerists are deprived of the experience necessary to become capable strategists.

A report from the American Academy of Diplomacy published in 2015 finds “increasing politicization undermines institutional strength; almost no career officers serve in the most senior State positions, while short-term political appointees penetrate ever deeper into the system.” A report published earlier this year by the Partnership for Public Service finds “The imbalance [between career and political appointees] decreases managerial capacity, discourages accountability and disrupts mission-critical work, diminishing trust between political and career staff.” As I have written previously, too many political appointees undermines the expertise and effectiveness of an organization. We have also seen how political appointees do not prioritize kitchen table issues for careerists, such as leave policies and spousal employment.

Diversity and merit

Improving the diversity of the Department of State is vital. Too many talented women and people of color are excluded from positions of authority because of systemic discrimination. The Biden Administration has made laudable progress in appointing women and people of color, but such moves may do little for the long term health of the organization.

This challenge stains the service of all State Department employees by undermining the idea of a meritocracy. Indeed, the employee evaluation system is often derided as a “creative writing contest” rather than an objective assessment of one’s success. Every mature organization understands that culture is created by incentivizing and rewarding the desired behavior, but many foreign service officers complain the promotions process is disconnected from any measure of performance. Instead, the system incentivizes what participants call “kissing up and kicking down” to ensure a good review from one’s boss. One gets ahead by getting along, not challenging orthodoxy. Many believe that the promotion and job assignment systems do a poor job of selecting the best and the brightest.

Questionable Impact

I believe that many diplomats today are unsure of the value and impact of their work. The problem is not just that an aging technical infrastructure, inefficient processes, and a burdensome HR system that exasperates officials at every turn. And it’s not just that the overmilitarization of our foreign policy starves diplomacy of oxygen. The bigger problem is that the State Department and its employees do not have a strong understanding of what works in diplomacy. Officials receive little training on best practices in diplomacy, perhaps because the State Department does not invest in evaluating the success and failure or studying the impact of its policies. This is a stark contrast to USAID, for instance, which has invested deeply in a learning agenda in recent years. Instead, the policy process discourages innovation and risk taking, demanding least-common-denominator consensus around policy positions that are unlikely to achieve stated objectives. Little has changed since the diplomat Richard Holbrooke famously deemed State “the machine that fails.” Many officials have a suspicion that all their sacrifices and long hours might not be as impactful as they should be. “Is this going to work?” I once asked an envoy on his way to lead a high profile negotiation to end a war. “Definitely not. But this is just what we do.”

* * *

I must admit, State’s myriad organizational problems are personal to me. I am among those foreign service officers who recently left (in mid 2016). I had a good career, enjoyed my assignments, and was moving up the ranks quickly. It was my dream job, and yet the day-to-day reality of the job left me dissatisfied.

A memorable experience of mine illustrates each of these three interwoven factors. While serving a term on the governing board of the American Foreign Service Association (a diplomatic corps union with limited collective bargaining power) I joined colleagues dissenting from a vote to change our promotions process by reducing the number of groups that would review our personnel files (EERs) by half, no doubt saving the bureaucracy time and money, but also decreasing the robustness of the promotion process. The details of the debate are less important than the generational divide it exposed -- most of the entry- and mid-level board members dissented from the Department’s plan, expressing frustration with the fairness of the promotion process. My colleagues and I pushed the Department to produce evidence that the promotion process was effective, or to implement a mechanism to evaluate the efficacy of the process over time. Our longer-serving colleagues on the board disagreed, and we eventually narrowly lost the vote.

Ultimately, the American people should be proud of their Department of State. American diplomacy has helped advance democracy, construct a powerful globalized economy, and build a more peaceful world. But as the international system grows increasingly complex and competitive, it is time to up our game. My goal is not to denigrate an institution I love — I seek to contribute to the conversation about how to build a better State Department and improve the quality of U.S. foreign policy.

With thanks to Zed Tarar for his feedback and input.