Speeches

Management Officers' Conference, State Department Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Singapore

February 1, 2005

I am delighted to be here this morning and welcome you to Singapore.   We are happy to have this opportunity to host the EAP Management Officers conference. We welcome attendees from 22 posts in the region and the many presenters from the Department. Up front, I want to thank Management Counselor Karen Stanton for the terrific job she and the management staff have done setting this conference up.

Let me take advantage of my role as host to provide some food for thought. In these initial words of welcome, I want to touch on three themes: Management-customer relations; Management-Front Office relations; and Management self-awareness. Le me get into each of these and then take questions.

First, Management-Customer Relations.

Here I am talking about the internal customer. How does management deal with the various embassy elements and staff?

A bad manager is simply process-oriented. “I went right by the regulations,” is usually a response after every bad management decision. This doesn’t mean that the regs are wrong or that we should not try to follow them. But if that is all we do, if we do not also apply any insight or context, we are not adding a lot of value.

A good manager understands the broader context in which he operates. Not just task-focused, but mission-focused. Not process oriented, but goal oriented.

All embassy leadership receives a lot of requests for which the answer is “no” – the request just doesn’t make sense. But the mistake is simply to say “no” and nothing else. The right response is to ask, “What are you trying to do?” Where did this problem come from?

Rather than simply reject the solution requested, management can propose an alternative.

It’s a service business. The process, the regs, that’s your problem. The customer is thinking about the ultimate goal. We want our people to be happy as possible. We want them to believe that embassy management has integrity and imagination. Remember, there is an ultimate question, unspoken, that is embedded in the actual question that is put to you. The ultimate question is – Can you help me?

So a service culture is connected to treating people the right way.   We know that embassy personalities constitute a bell curve distribution of wisdom and temperament and there are some people who are chronically dissatisfied. Others will frequently end up in problems of their own making. But most of the embassy population is actually rational and the work they are doing is important. But regardless of where one stands in the animal kingdom, each deserves a cordial hearing. Something in us has to say, “I’m listening and I will give you a professional response.”

Management-Front Office

Second, Let me turn to management relations with the front office, an area where I have a bit of experience. Let’s talk about bad relationships.

A bad relationship is not necessarily one in which there is friction or dysfunctionality, although I imagine that occasionally happens. But most people are professional and make an effort to be polite, so I am not discussing egregious cases here. I am referring to an everyday bad relationship, one that to some extent might be found among us today -- one in which management sees its role as merely acquiescing to front office requests. We take care of the residence and other miscellaneous requests, and you leave us alone.

For its part, a bad relationship is when the Ambassador simply sees management as something akin to a waiter in a restaurant. Here are a few things I’d like, now go get them.

Not only is this type of behavior – obsequious on behalf of the manager, and arrogant on behalf of the ambassador – bound to lead to trouble, but it ignores the role of management in the embassy and reduces the entire section to some sort of personal assistant.

So in a bad relationship, we have twin pillars of ignorance. The Ambassador does not particularly know or care what management does. And management does not particularly know or care what the Ambassador is doing.

In a good relationship, the management counselor is a full member of the country team, -- aware of broader embassy goals, public events, upcoming visits, -- and participates as a seasoned member of the senior staff. The management counselor is also an important window into embassy morale, as a symbol of embassy commitment to a supportive work place and living environment.

In a good relationship, management needs and issues are an on-going part of the ambassador’s mind-set. Issues and concerns are flagged in advance. Trade- offs are discussed. Other embassy input is sought. We have open discussion on these topics. Bad news cannot always be avoided, but surprises can generally be avoided and bad news can be presented in a supportive fashion.

Finally, let me discuss Management self-awareness.

How do you know if you are doing a good job? How do you know what needs to be changed? We get false reads from internal customers.  Many internal customers will simply decide that if you give them what they want, you are doing a good job. Otherwise you are not.

Beyond customers, we get false positives from ourselves. Almost everybody in Government and in the private sector seriously believes they are doing a good job. I think it is a very difficult question to discern how good a job we are doing, for ambassadors perhaps even more than managers.

We know how weaker managers rationalize their performance. This is the way I’ve always done it. This is the way my predecessor did it. I’m only doing what’s in the regs. It's even worse at other posts. But times change,  expectations change, technology changes. Plus the way you always did it might not have been perfect to begin with.

I try to deal with this through open doors and open minds. Talk with just about everyone. And listen to just about everyone. The act of being solicitous is useful in itself, and you pick up some good tid bits besides. So when I was back in D.C. in December, I had about 60 meetings in ten days with people around the State Department. Here’s what I see, here are the issues I’m looking at. What do you see?

Its useful to get around the embassy, to ask section heads where they are going and how management can help.

It’s useful to have a brown bag luncheon with Junior Officers to explain your section and what they do.

It’s useful to have your people serve as control officers for visitors, and participate in representational functions and briefings.

It is useful to have management lead in the MPP process.

In other words, some of your time and energy should be devoted to client management – and not waiting for them to contact you.

Some of your time and energy should be devoted to reminding other elements in the building of the broader role you can play in other areas of embassy operations.

And some should be devoted to helping the rest of the embassy understand what you do better.

If management can do an excellent job in relations with customers, if it can foster the kind of mutual appreciation and collaborative spirit with the front office, and if detached self-awareness is part of planning -- the entire management system moves ahead.

Instead of twin pillars of ignorance, we have twin pillars of strength.

I’d be delighted to take your questions.