Insights on DOS / country team culture?

[Outsidethewire]

I thought the Mars-Venus discussion was useful, too (if one keeps in mind always that generalizations do not reflect the full diversity of an organization, of course). Clearly, the differences are also linked to the nature of the mission. The "structure of decision-making at State mainly operates through buy-in, compromise, and consensus," as chrisleslie puts it, precisely because the nature of our mission is to make things happen through that same buy-in, compromise, and consensus. Shouldn't surprise that the institution therefore attracts the kind of people it does. However, by the end of the 1990's a lot of us were seeing that our mission was becoming more results-oriented, long before Dr. Rice announced we were going to be "transformational." We were doing a great deal of work in eastern Europe, for example, that aimed at actually shaping events rather than just reporting on and analyzing them. That requires more of the interagency/teamwork skills than the traditional individualist analyst skills of an earlier FS generation. Someone who can "make things happen" through teamwork and leadership is far more valued now than a decade ago.

[Old Eagle]

I am heartened to hear that the "shaping" mission is gaining traction in the FS. The "observe and report" crew, I think, was a phenomenon of the post-Vietnam era. As I mentioned above, I had the pleasure of serving with several great FSOs who were willing (some even thrived) getting outside the wire and mixing it up with the locals. Of those, many, if not most, had served in CORDS teams downrange. In this day of expanded connectivity and OSINT sources, members of overseas missions have to provide some meaningful value added. IMHO, shaping the security environment is a critical function of those missions.

[Outsidethewire]

There's always been a component of "shaping" to State Department work, it's just that until the last 15-20 years, the "target" of the shaping was different -- basically, it was other governments and governmental institutions. So an FSO did a lot of observing and reporting, but also under instruction would attempt to effect change (another way of saying "shape") in the behavior of the government or government institution he was accredited to (e.g. the MFA). Now, with non-governmental factors/issues/actors much more important in the international environment, the "shaping" mission has expanded to include these, and we therefore need to be working with a much broader cross-section of society in order to move things in a particular direction, no matter which country we're in. We also therefore need to have additional tools and skills, which is something frankly we're still lacking to a significant extent (Hello, Congress??).

What hasn't changed is that this still largely requires the persuasive, collaborative approach that sometimes drives my military colleagues crazy (though not the smart ones). You can't order a district council or municipal director around any more than you can order a Foreign Ministry official around!