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The Governing Board is increasingly able to delegate complex,
time-consuming tasks to properly constituted committees that
report back to the Governing Board with recommendations to
be debated and approved or rejected. As AFSA hews ever more
closely to our bylaws, we reduce risk and increase accountability,
which, as the bylaws make clear, rests with the Governing Board
elected by the membership.
Establishing a Professional Policy Issues directorate charged with
leading the association’s analysis, development and articulation
of policies; conducting research on workforce issues affecting the
Foreign Service; and fortifying AFSA’s reputation in policy circles.
With the creation of PPI, we established a home base at AFSA for
workforce planning, enabling the organization to respond instant-
ly and authoritatively to proposals that affect the institutional
strength of the Foreign Service. Examples include marshaling
arguments against lateral entry into the (already full) Foreign
Service mid-ranks at State and working to expand the Consular
Fellows Program to address the current consular adjudicator gap
while providing entry-level officers greater opportunity for in-cone
experience early in their careers.
PPI also laid the foundations for AFSA to shape a longer-term
agenda driven by a nuanced understanding of members’ aspira-
tions and concerns. One key new initiative: Structured conversa-
tions to allow us to hear directly from members. Over the course
of 18 lunches with small groups, I heard members describe their
careers in the Foreign Service. The good: the mission of the For-
eign Service and the caliber of colleagues. The bad—and even the
ugly: bureaucratic processes that make even harder the wear and
tear of packing everything and everyone up every few years to
deploy globally, as our mission requires.
As we have worked internally at AFSA to improve governance and
clean up our processes, so AFSA has worked on behalf of mem-
bers to improve the processes that affect them, their ability to do
their jobs well, and, crucially, their families.
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Now that we have established a
continuous feedback loop to talk to a
broad swath of members, AFSA is in a
strong position as the Voice of the
Foreign Service to identify pain points
and work constructively to address them
so that the Foreign Service, operating
at the top of its game, can deliver the
strong global leadership that Americans
want and the world needs.
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