Episode 4: Culture of Silence

The second part of a conversation between fp21 founder and CEO Dan Spokojny with Maryum Saifee, who is currently a U.S. diplomat contributing in her personal capacity. Her views do not reflect her institutional affiliations. While on a two-year sabbatical from the foreign service, Maryum was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, Presidential Leadership Scholar, and Truman Center for National Policy Senior Visiting Fellow where she led a 30-person taskforce on State Department reform.

Transcript

Transcribed by a robot who doesn’t know much about foreign policy.

Maryum Saifee: 0:02

The culture has always been don't rock the boat. There's the formal policy, which is if you see something, say something in there are these mechanisms for accountability. There's a grievance process. Yes, there could be accountability if you exercise these mechanisms. But these mechanisms are not necessarily wired in a way that could produce justice. If I say something, maybe I'll be told, well, you're not the right fit, which ends up being code for exclusion. That ends up being why you see only certain demographics at the leadership table or of the seventh floor.

Alex Bollfrass: 0:37

Hello, I'm Alex Bollfrass. It's my pleasure to welcome you to Fp 21 minutes, a podcast dedicated to evidence and integrity in foreign policy. We bring new conversations between practitioners and researchers about how American foreign policy is made and how it can be made better. Stay tuned to hear what they have to say. This week, we are continuing the conversation between dance because money the Fp 21, founder and CEO, with Merriam safey, a US diplomat appearing here in her personal capacity. And the views she is generously sharing with us do not reflect her current or past institutional affiliations. Last week, their conversation focused on the compatibility of advanced analytic skill acquisition and career trajectories at the State Department. What follows is a look at the cultural obstacles to change inside the department. Because it's the kind of conversation that leaves you hungry for change in how American foreign policy is planned and executed. I read a little from the introduction to fb 20, one's flagship report after it's called less art, more science and can be found on our website.

Maryum Saifee: 1:58

It's been really amazing to see that change that's happening from the grassroots people really just sharing their truth, breaking the culture of silence on the Keep your head down culture, even though it comes with a cost. It's not to romanticize the storytelling and the resilience of trauma survivors, especially those who are from communities, underrepresented people of color and others. But it's to say that they have the courage they're speaking up in spite of the cost because the cost is still there. And then you have leadership that's also encouraging it right. So you have Secretary blinkin, you have the the president, you know, himself, Biden, you have Susan Rice, you have all these figures within the administration on the domestic and global policy front that are saying, we need to look at attrition. And they're framing diversity as a national security imperative. And that's something I think that's critical, the language that we use to describe this. It's not just inclusion, because it's a nice thing to do. But it's really the smart thing. It produces better foreign policy, and produces better policy in general, whatever the domain is. But on the foreign policy front, it's particularly important, especially because our record on race has been weaponized against us by other by our by our adversaries, whether it's the Russians or the Iranians,

Dan Spokojny: 3:07

I wonder if you can help me and help us understand more of the culture that asks us to keep our head down. I want you can expand on that for us and dig into that for us. And how is that changing? Or how must it change?

Maryum Saifee: 3:21

Well, it's a great question. I think the State Department is the oldest, it's the oldest cabinet agency, right? And it's probably one of the most, in many ways elitist. Right. So this predates the last four years. People talk a lot about the last four years. But really, these issues go back decades. And these disparities go back decades, the culture has always been don't rock the boat. And we talked about that. And I think there's the formal policy, which is if you see something, say something, and there's a there are these mechanisms for accountability, and all of this and in terms of on paper, we're in the right, there's everything's unwritten rules that we close to perfect, but the culture is the issue. There's a grievance process, yes, there could be accountability if you exercise these mechanisms. But you know, that, Oh, these mechanisms are not necessarily wired in a way that can produce justice. And also, if I say something, maybe I won't get the assignment that I want, or, or maybe I'll be told, well, you're not the right fit, which ends up being code, especially for women of color is code for exclusion. And so that that ends up being why you start to see only certain demographics at the leadership table or on the seventh floor. And so because of what we see is the cost, there's even more of a fear of actually saying anything, because already you're set up for you work 10 times harder to get half this bar, if you're a woman of color, if you have a disability, or if you have some kind of there's some barrier, right in terms of the what I call and what we in the report, actually, for the Truman center, we characterize the State Department as a caste system. And so part of the storytelling and that speaking truth to power is to inject more equity into this system hierarchy and to help dismantle the caste system.

Dan Spokojny: 4:57

I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about you mentioned this too. corridor reputation. What does that mean?

Maryum Saifee: 5:02

It's another part of the informal link language, right of the department. There's the formal policy and then the informal culture. And so I would say the corridor reputation is to say, be an upstanding citizen. But what ends up happening is that they say, if you if something bad happens, and if you say something, then your quarter reputation, which is it can also be weaponized against people of color and women and, and others groups that are vulnerable. I guess the definition of it is like your your social capital in the building, it will be eviscerated, potentially. So if you file a grievance, what about your quarter reputation? So that language, it's almost triggering to even hear the two words together? Because I find it to be so toxic in many ways. And so how do we create a language where we celebrate people who were speaking truth to power, who are courageous people in our history, like Allison Palmer, right, who pushed for gender equality and trauma of systemic barriers, those are the people we should be celebrating because they're opening the doors for others. Instead, what we do is we punish them, marginalize them, we push them out. This speaks to our conception of what it means to be an expert, we talk about these amorphous ideas of chord or reputation, which on the one hand, seem innocuous that people have good reputations or bad reputations. And of course, I want to work with the person with a great reputation. But when this kind of very subjective system is built into the way that we get placed, with foreign service officers, civil service officers get placed into high profile jobs, when it's built into the system of how we choose who gets promoted, and who gets left behind in a system that is purposefully built as up and out. Either you get promoted or you get you're pushed out of the building, but seems to me to speak very fundamentally to what we consider as merit. What we consider as experts in the department. And this is something we've talked about before is that when we don't have a good definition, or a good system of measuring expertise, you start falling back on very human prejudices that can be very damaging. Right. And like your Yeah, because the unconscious bias pieces you're comfortable with who looks like you are who comes from the same background, and as you are, right like you are, whatever it is. And so when you're going through the performance evaluations, because it's baked in whether you want it to be part of it or not, that makes us different from other sectors that are maybe more focused on profit or return on investment. For us, it's about the service. And that's great. But it also leads again to burnout. Because if the the people who are the most the closest to the pain are the one wallet, the ones volunteering to solve the problems of racial injustice, systemic 400 years of systemic racism, if you're going to ask now a junior officer on Black History Month to then share a Tiana Spears, let's say to share her trauma that's that takes it takes an even greater tool on the person. And they're doing it outside their daily job functions. And they might actually there might be a cost to that down the road, in terms of their professional career, because not everyone might be so interested in hearing some of this truth telling. So I think that yeah, if there was a way to by putting it in the I think if you put something like that in the review, then it also helps pay for it. In a sense.

Dan Spokojny: 8:09

I've heard you made a connection between creating a safe work environment and a diverse and equitable and inclusive institution, and the way that an organization can be innovative and grow. Yes. Can you expand on that connection for me?

Maryum Saifee: 8:25

Yes, absolutely. So I think it really there's plenty of studies on this like McKinsey did a study when you have more diversity in leadership positions, whether it's gender, ethnic, there's some x percentage 33%, or whatever it is more productivity. So we know that there's the data there. We know that like when women are integrated into peace processes, they're I believe, 35%, more durable, like we can go on and on about the gains of this from a business sense or policy sense. But it also just produces different thought Imagine if everybody comes to a table with a different perspective, or a different lived experience, then they're going to, that's the incubator for creativity is that team full of diversity of diverse thought, because if everyone comes from the exact same incestuous kind of background, in the same circles and same networks, their lived experience, it's just going to be more homogenous in terms of their product. And so the way we have innovation is having creative inputs. This is a way to also break the culture of risk aversion as well, by having robust discussions at tables of diverse thinkers at a table. That's something that I feel with this moment that we're currently in. It's been gratifying to see that Shirley Chisholm has said, She's one of my favorite historical figures. If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair, like we're at a moment where there's a lot of folding chairs, but for me, it's exciting, but then I'm also nervous. Are these folding chairs temporary? Is this a moment in time? Are they transient, or are they going to be permanent? And so how do we institutionalize the folding chair?

Dan Spokojny: 9:57

I'm really appreciating more do This conversation Maryum the connection between the diverse experiences both lived experiences, but also professional educational experiences that people bring to the table to be able to pick what those issues are that we need to invest in more than if you rely only on the elites, quote, unquote, if you rely only on the most senior officials in the department to say, here are the three issues that I think are vital to invest in, you're going to miss this vast set of experiences of Mr. Ambassador, Mrs. an ambassador, when I was engaged in this environment, I see that this is going to be so vital for the future of our foreign policy or to help the American people or to engage work productively. There's such a vital Nexus here between valuing diverse experiences and the diversity of people that makes America so great and thinking about how we continue to learn and expand as the field the broad field of foreign policy. Of course, this isn't just about the Department of State,

Maryum Saifee: 11:00

it just takes courage. And I think once you start to do it, you build more of it. Doing that breaking the culture of silence takes a lot of courage and guts. Once you do it, though, you develop more of it. So I think after that, I ended up being much more truth-telling about my experiences within the department that it hasn't been easy as a woman of color and creating more spaces for others. Ambassador, Bonnie Jenkins, for example, created women of color advancing peace and security, which is phenomenal. She just did this maybe two and a half years ago. And it has blossomed into this thing that's just incredible. It has chapters in Accra, and in Atlanta and all over, there was a hunger, there was no safe space for women of color, in peace and security and foreign policy. She created this nourishing environment where you weren't judged, you were just able to be yourself. And then we had these conversations of courage in these spaces that were really off the grid that were not public to the world. But with that, we drew strength. So then because of PR actually and because of W caps. And some of these other spaces and mentorship from Ambassador Jean Abercrombie when Stanley seeing, visualizing Gina and Ambassador Bonnie are both in some ways, unicorns to black women career at the rising to the rank of ambassador, they're not just role modeling their existence at the table, but also the fact that they are speaking truth at the table, right. So they're not just sitting at the table like precariously in their folding chairs. They're actually like, no, like, we're here. And here's how we're going to create a culture that's going to offend some of this, keep your head down. There's a cost, of course, and you have to almost be comfortable with that cost. It's worth it. And again, not to romanticize the resilience part, because I also don't like to set people up for it's all going to be great, the speaker truth and everything is just magical. Afterwards, it's gonna suck, it's gonna be awful, you'll feel like you're being gaslit, you'll be questioned all the time, you should be grateful that you're even at the table. I find that a lot where people I do a lot myself, like I work really hard, I might have done something that I think is amazing. And then I'm told, like, No, you should stay in your place, stay in your lane type of thing. So I think it's recognizing your own power and saying No, you know what I deserve to be at this table, I'm going to continue to speak up, even if there's going to be this pushback, because that's the only way you make the table bigger, and so you can have more people at it. If you don't exercise that courage, then the structures will be set up in such a way that it'll continue to perpetuate. It's not easy, but it's essential.

Alex Bollfrass: 13:27

Imagine a National Security Council meeting where participants arrive prepared to defend their policy proposals with robust evidence from history, data, intelligence, and social science. At the meeting, the integrity of ideas and rigorous analysis wins out over ideology, watered-down recommendations, and bureaucratic turf battles are with this information. Meeting participants a racially and socioeconomically diverse group from a range of disciplines carefully weigh the likely costs, risks, and rewards associated with each policy option. Guided by a professional facilitator trained to lead effective strategy sessions. The group hones its objectives and chooses a recommendation that clearly lays out the steps necessary to achieve the President's desired results. As the bureaucracy executes the policy, officials carefully monitor its effectiveness against clear metrics of progress, allowing leadership to honestly assess its success or if necessary, change course. The policymakers find that they can more easily explain a transparent evidence-based process to the President, Congress and the American people. Imagine that lessons from the successes and failures of the policy feed back into the bureaucracies collective knowledge, helping agencies adjust the personnel practices, internal processes and technology to more effectively contribute to US foreign policy. A more objective understanding of merit takes shape as the system promotes officers who miserably perform. Fp 21 aims to realize this vision, diplomacy is an art It is said. But from Silicon Valley to financial services, political campaigns to baseball, today's most successful enterprises have built their cultures around evidence. These organizations use a range of modern methods and tools to collect information, acquire insights, and make more sound decisions than their competitors. The culture of US foreign policy must follow suit to advance our national security. our elected officials and the American public deserve nothing less. The methods and practices of US foreign policy are stuck in the past. Instead of investing in modern technologies to make sense of today's superabundance of information, the system relies on subjective judgment. Instead of systematically researching and assessing information objectively, our organizations cherry-pick facts to defend their pre-existing views. Instead of fostering a culture of evidence and empiricism, we ground our policy ideas and instinct and ideology. To remain a competitive leader, the US must harness new, more powerful analytic approaches to decision making. Just as today's most successful companies have cast off intuition men tradition, a US foreign policy based on evidence, integrity, and innovation offers political leaders more effective and reliable tools of statecraft. The culture of foreign policy must be more systematic, designed to account for evidence on all sides of an argument. This will allow us to more effectively tackle the biases, misperceptions, and turf seamanship, that impair our policy processes. Among the most pernicious forms of bias are the prejudices around gender, race, sexual orientation, and religion, diversity and inclusion are integral to the achievement of evidence-based foreign policy. Research shows that diverse groups outperform homogenous ones. If our country's policies are dominated by only one subsection of our society, we lose out on a vast spectrum of insight necessary to meet our international challenges. The faces of US foreign policy must reflect America's rich diversity of experience, background, race, class, creed, and culture, objectivity and inclusion go hand in hand. They are inseparable. relationships, moral judgment, and the politics of our elected leaders will remain as vital to policymaking as languages, subject matter, expertise and history will to our diplomats. Computers cannot replace flesh and blood experts. Human debate and judgment will remain indispensable. Instead, advancing our foreign policy calls for the integration of new insights into existing approaches, be they from data analysis, qualitative approaches, or better knowledge management to make our policies smarter. adopting these trusted and user-friendly practices will help foreign policy practitioners achieve better outcomes for the American people. Most of the recommendations in this report apply to the NSC process, and the Foreign Affairs elements of us departments and agencies. Many specifically concerned the Department of State the lead agency of Foreign Affairs. rehabilitating the State Department's ability to be a trusted advisor for the president is vital to improving US foreign policy. to reform the broader interagency process, we must empower diplomacy realigning our national security of resources to invest more in statecraft. Today's conversations around rebuilding diplomacy are heavy on substance, but light on details regarding how a weakened institution will achieve such lofty objectives. Simply investing more money and new staff into an old system will not adequately address the weaknesses of our foreign policy. The Biden administration should adopt the suite of reforms outlined in the report to realize a new vision for US foreign policy. That's all we thought you might want to hear this week. If it wasn't you can file a complaint at podcast at FP two one.org. Encouraging comments and ideas for future episodes are of course Welcome to the podcast is brought to you by Fp 21, a nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of evidence and integrity in American foreign policy. You can find out more about the organization how to get involved and subscribe to our newsletter on our website at FP two one.org We tweet at FP two one o RG. Special thanks to our intern, Michelle Wright and to Ronan McDermott for composing our theme.