Coupla more points.

As Stan points out, there are usually two levels of meetings in any embassy: a broad information-sharing meeting and a policy meeting. Broader meetings are useful to learn what other off-the-wall offices are doing and to share the U.S. government position on issues with a broad audience so that everyone is speaking with one voice. The smaller policy meetings are used to sync activities of those offices directly engaged with the HN on policy-type issues (DCM, POL/ECON/CIA/DATT-SDO).

As opposed to a military hierarchy, State types appear to enjoy getting "buy in" and consensus. It's a culture thing. Can you spell kumbahya?

In contrast to Stan, my experience with the politicos was more positive (2 out of 3). In fact, I was very comfortable working with the two business people because they understood resource management and WANTED to make decisions rather than water things down to a consensus. But I digress.