Episode 2: Data and Diversity

How can evidence improve diversity in the State Department—and what’s at stake for the national interest? The diplomat Chris Le and academic Thomas Scherer in conversation.

Episode transcript

This transcript was generated automatically. Errors are expected.

Chris Le
The lack of diversity prevents the department from fully evolved in the face of 21st-century challenges also promotes groupthink and conformity bias. This ultimately harms US foreign policy and hurts the American people.

Alex Bollfrass
Hello, I'm Alex Bollfrass. It's my pleasure to welcome you to fp21 minutes, a podcast dedicated to evidence and integrity in foreign policy. We bring you 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 get to hear the choice cuts of a conversation between a foreign service officer and a research academic. They talk about the role of diversity in the conduct of American diplomacy in sharing some of their personal experiences in a broad range of institutions and the foreign policy ecosystem. They also talk about what gets them excited about evidence-based approaches to foreign policy. I will let our guests introduce themselves. But must issue the caveat that the views expressed are their personal perspectives and do not represent those of the United States government or of fp21.

Chris Le
My name is Chris Le and I am a US foreign service officer better known as a US diplomat. I have to add that I am speaking in my personal capacity and my views and that represents that of the US government that works on narco-trafficking issues in Mexico human rights issues in Greece during the economic and migrant refugee crisis. South China Sea issues visibly the Philippines and political-military issues in Japan. I've also worked in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which is part of the Intelligence Community. And as a fellow at the Center for New American Security think tank known as CNAS.

Thomas Scherer
My name is Thomas Scherer. And my dream is to be an academic-practitioner, toeing the line between academia and policy and practice. My PhD focused on UN peacekeeping operations. After finishing that I worked in DC at the US Institute of Peace for a few years, I did some research on peace and economics with a project in Afghanistan and one in Nigeria. And then for the last two years, I've been working at UC San Diego with a small research lab called the Center for Peace and Security Studies.

Chris Le
Evidence and data have shown that diverse teams perform better and I believe a diverse mediocre would more effectively formulate and implement foreign policy in our national interests and build stronger relationships with foreign governments and our people and promote peace and economic prosperity worldwide. A lack of diversity undermines our ability to represent America overseas and harms the policymaking process and the quality of that foreign policy. We can't really build a vast network of foreign relationships and gain insight on the diversity of perspectives, if our foreign policy is conducted at the highest levels, with people who all look and think and see the world like Chernobyl, but unfortunately, the State Department's Foreign Service is nearly 60% male, and over 80% Caucasian. Well, we're recruiting women and minorities, we're not really promoting or retaining the talent, which suggests that our personnel systems need domination. The lack of diversity prevents the State Department and foreign policy from fully evolving to face our 21st-century challenges, and also promotes groupthink and conformity bias that results in blind spots, and keeps up diverse points of view. So this ultimately harms US foreign policy and hurts the American people. For example, if we're thinking to analyze a political situation in a foreign country, and we only interact with that country's foreign policy elite, we're missing out on the bigger picture of how women and minorities, immigrants, religious groups, and others affect these decisions. And we can't gain access on the platform to reach these diverse audiences if we don't get in there. And three, what better way to gain their trust than having a US diplomat who speaks the language worldly, knows the history of the culture and can find those unique commonalities such as a shared gender new immigration story, or an understanding of racial injustice, be able to open hearts and minds to our democratic ideals. And ultimately, this is good for the American people because a more secure and prosperous world reinforces our national security and prosperity at home. So that's really why I believe that if the State Department took on more data-driven measures will be in a better position to analyze and evaluate, formulate and implement form calls. And data and empiric evidence should also be the basis for performance evaluation assignments, and our promotion systems, which not only would result in a more equitable and transparent system, and save taxpayers millions of dollars, it also removes systemic and institutional barriers that prevent women and minorities from advancing. And this will then lead to more diverse diplomatic corps that was better positioned to formulate and implement our nation's foreign policy. In countries like in Asia, or the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, places where diversity is our strength.

Thomas Scherer
This is both incredibly inspiring and exciting, and also very frustrating that it's, this seems like a no-brainer. How is this still a problem?

Chris Le
I think it's really unfortunate. But I think democracy's big bureaucracies are very hard to change. Some people are really satisfied with the status quo.

Thomas Scherer
But a small experience I've had at the Institute of Peace, we had a pre-doc program, so for young scholars to fund them to complete their dissertation. And during my time there, the VP got very interested in how is the program doing in terms of diversity and inclusion. And so we collect a lot of stats throughout the whole application process. And the problem pretty much came from the people going on to advanced academic careers are a distinct subsection of the population. If you just start at that high level, it's already way too late. And that the problem is there are problems certainly at that high level of institutions. But there's also just a systemic problem that's much broader.

Chris Le
Three layers, you have like you said, people at the top, let's appointment, people who've advanced in their 20,25, 30-year careers have reached that level. And then you have recruitment when you're talking about where you get these diverse people in. But then there's also one of the major issues that I don't think most people really pay attention to, because it's the hardest, which is retention, how to keep people in a system to keep them satisfied in the system and wants to continue advancing and that if there are institutional barriers for that, for them to advance. It's interesting that the US Institute of Peace was focused on that, I think that's about self-awareness was great.

Thomas Scherer
It was also a drop in the bucket. That idea of multiple viewpoints resonates with part of maybe part of why I'm excited about fp21, or a research problem we keep coming back to is how humans just work in a way that is so based on our own experiences. One of my favorite books on this problem is called analogies of war by an author who made the point that during the Vietnam War, whether policy officials were pro or were against escalation and more troops and continuing the war, they pretty much relied on two metaphors, whether you're they thought of the Berlin crisis or of the experience in it was either the Indonesian or Philippine insurgency. But the idea that we're we can be so one tract. And just think of the couple cases we maybe learned about in our master's program or in our personal experience, and just don't have the means to think about that broader picture. And so to me, what you're saying resonates that one, one obvious way to help deal with that is bringing people with more diverse backgrounds, more diverse education. So you'll bring in that additional information. And then part of my work that I'm excited about, that makes me excited about fp21 is some of the ideas we've been working on to try to capture information from a broader spectrum of experiences and crises, and make it easier for policymakers to be able to deal with that wealth of information. We have a bunch of case studies sitting on shelves, we have a bunch of great experiences somewhere out there. And we just don't have good processes or tools for making that accessible and bringing it together.

Chris Le
Going back to our previous conversation about reforms and diversity and why that matters and foreign policy, thinking the State Department assignments matter. So if you plan the top assignments in your career, it opens up doors and pathways to success. And it's not necessarily a skill that you gain in the assignment. The time sometimes more importantly, who you gain access to, that opens up the opportunities when you're bidding on your next position. So diplomats have like the sponsorship of a well-known senior diplomat will be highly regarded for future assignments. Well, equally talented, you know, employee officer serving without those connections, maybe a setback in their career advancement. So It's really subjective. And more we're biases against women and minorities in leadership roles affect their selection for these top assignments as well. So it really matters who more than your own qualifications, which I think is a huge problem in the State Department. While there are problems in the existing process of getting your next assignment, I think that there are solutions and fixes. So one of the biggest changes I'd like to see is a complete overhaul of the Foreign Service assignments process. So currently, it is heavily based on who, like I said, and it's an inefficient, and labor-intensive process for both the employee digging their next assignment and the gaining office seeking an employee to fill a vacancy. So in addition to their full-time job and personal obligations, the employee spends upwards of six months, searching for vacancies, reaching out to incumbents, submitting email inquiries and references and conducting multiple rounds of interviews and an extremely objective process. And then the gaming office, scrutinizes the wording of emails, either responses, received level of interest. And then judges minor things like spelling errors or politeness, and then perhaps unconsciously judges major things like ethnicity, gender, religious background, sexual orientation, or family status, that you can glean from the information that the employee submits. Then, at the conclusion of this whole process, oftentimes, a senior official and Ambassador or Assistant Secretary will swoop in and then decide on the person for the job. And all this energy and the taxpayer hours and like 1000s of people are not, and the particular person was blessed to be some connections, not qualifications. And even if this weren't the case, and the entire process of the entire process has been riddled with biases, like the lack of standard interview questions, unfair advantages, and some have with high-level official serving as recommenders, and affinity bias, and I'm sure you've heard of affinity bias, it's pretty far tendency to gravitate towards people similar to ourselves, how it applies in this cases, this might mean hiring or promoting someone who shares the same race and gender, age or educational background that you have. So taking into account that the senior Foreign Service is made up of nearly 70% men, and almost 90% Caucasians, it would be fair to say that some of this bias plays a role in the assignment selection. And then essentially, if you don't look at and think like the status quo, the assignments and promotion system make it much harder for you to make it to the top, change the system. Think about him, don't you think it'll be easy to mentor someone who's just like you, you see yourself in someone else, and you want to make sure they don't make the same mistakes that you made.

Thomas Scherer
So there's this incredibly complicated system that's inefficient, in itself has plenty of room for bias. But it's also often sidelined in order for the senior kingmakers to continue to uphold the status quo and appointment like them. So this feels I think the technical term is a lose-lose.

Chris Le
Yeah, that's an extremely inefficient system. But what I do want to emphasize is instead of the system that basically exploits, professional and personal time of employees and hiring managers, because you have to do this all on your own time, and while you're doing your full-time job is hugely subjective. And it advantages those who have been exposed at an early age to navigate social and office etiquette and the art of self-promotion for people who have mentors who have shown them the way. So I think that an assignment system managed from the Human Resources bureau would create a more transparent and equitable process focused on diplomats qualifications and potential, rather than who and it would save taxpayers millions of dollars. What I'm thinking is a one-stop shop for bidding on assignments, where employees submit their resumes and cover letters HR, with their priorities in terms of professional family or medical considerations. And then the State Department would eliminate biases. It would standardize position criteria and interview questions, and conduct interviews with two or more interviewers through the same medium such as by phone, use a points-based Rubric or rating scorecard, and anonymized cover letters, resumes and recommendation letters. There'll be a 360 recommendation or feedback process, where an employee subordinates and peers will finally have a say. And then with all this information, all this, all those scorecards, and employee preferences and interviews and 360 feedback rankings, the State Department could match diplomats by their skill sets who they can see them see. And this is similar to the Nobel Prize winning algorithmic solution to the stable matching problem, which basically finds matches giving an ordering of preferences. And this has been implemented in matching medical students to hospitals in the US, and in content delivery services, by assigning users internet servers based on their content, like streaming videos versus loading web pages. So basically, what I want people to take away from so that by using data-driven measures in the State Department's personnel system, it would lead to a more diverse diplomatic corps, which would be better positioned to formulate and implement our nation's policies.

Thomas Scherer
And that sounds like a win-win.

Chris Le
I've been thinking about what's gone on in the US this past summer, ongoing protests. And I know that in the wake of these long, overdue national conversations on racial injustice in America, there have been numerous articles and calls for reform in the State Department. I think it's caused a lot of self-reflection for private sector and government as well like reckoning in terms of how representation matters and how this affects our nation. And I'm really supportive a lot of these recommendations that have appeared in articles and numerous publications. And I've also advocated for many of them myself, but I think what makes me excited about fp21. And what I envision was successful FP two and 21, is that data and data-driven and evidence-based reforms would go a longer way in effecting change compared to any kind of narrow symbolic reforms that can be really deeply unsatisfying for people and also can be demoralizing if they're viewed as check the box solutions. So evidence and data will help make these institutional changes permanent, while symbolic reforms like creating Chief Diversity Officer positions, and the fantastic idea and I fully support, that kind of change tends to be subjective, and it can be easily eliminated with the changes in your official data-driven reforms, I think are more effective than subjective. And objective reforms can easily be subverted to preserve the status quo. And you know, what I mentioned today about the assignment process, it might seem like a no brainer for some, or completely radical fathers, what I want people to understand that the impact of that of an overhaul of the assignments process would be massive, would save money and time and also create transparency, and efficiently allocate human resources. It also raise morale, getting at the retention issue I mentioned before, and basically remove some barriers to advancement for diverse groups. And this will end up sort of resulting in better foreign policy that will harness the power of America strength and its diversity, which is a competitive advantage that many other countries don't have. So my vision for success would be moving towards data-driven, and empiric evidence-based foreign policy that I think would be really difficult to turn over with changes of administrations or changes with leadership. And then would really hit at the level of these institutional and systemic barriers for a lot of minorities and women.

Alex Bollfrass
There's a saying that the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. There is a parallel for the US government where the use of evidence is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. That's what came to mind when I read last week's fp21 newsletter discussing the release of the National Intelligence Council's latest Global Trends report. I hope you have a chance to subscribe and read the newsletter as well. That's all we thought you might want to hear this week. If it wasn't you can file a complaint at podcast [at] fp21.org. Encouraging comments and ideas for future episodes are of course welcome. The podcast is brought to you by fp21, 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 fp21.org. We tweet @fp21org. Special thanks to our intern Michele Wright and to Ronan McDermott for composing our theme music.