bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2022), pp. 18–21
In this critical historic moment, global challenges call for innovative solutions that Canada can and should provide, but our outdated bureaucracy and directionless foreign policy hamper the pursuit of our international interests.
HAVING SET OUT ON A CAREER IN DIPLOMACY, I had ambitious dreams of traipsing across the world doing my small part to help pursue our country’s most pressing interests, while representing Canada — a nation I had long heard “punched above its weight” on the international stage since the Pearson era. As the years passed, and as the initial rush of flashing a red passport subsided, I was able to get a deeper look under the hood of our diplomatic machine. While I was frequently in awe of the exceptional talent of many of my colleagues, I was all too often underwhelmed by the vacuousness and directionless output of the machine itself; a machine made up of several thousand employees that burned through an annual budget in the several billions of dollars. It often felt like we were just going through the motions without pursuing actual tangible objectives, and every three or four years, we’d all shuffle desks on a global scale. There was something fundamentally amiss about the machine — it ran on a glaringly outdated design, it was driven without a destination in mind, and had one overriding objective: not making waves.
Unable to shake these increasing doubts, I ultimately took the difficult decision to abandon my Foreign Service career to move to the private sector. Despite this decision, I still care very much about the Foreign Service and remain convinced that Canada needs to forge a path in the world through effective and innovative diplomacy, now more than ever. But if we just continue to tinker with the machine, we’re bound to be left in the dust, and soon enough, left out of the race altogether. Having been on the outside now for some time helps me see it for what it could be, not for what it is— a vantage point largely inaccessible to those currently at the helm.
So, what might this look like?
Snapshot of a future afternoon at a reimagined GAC
A joint US-UK delegation has just arrived at 125 Sussex to learn more about the strong momentum behind the department’s recently launched Cross-Sectoral Leaders Program — an initiative aimed at developing a cadre of leaders who seamlessly transition between the public, not-for-profit, and private sectors, potentially several times over the course of their careers, bringing new thought and skills back to GAC at regular intervals. In the Skelton Lobby, new Foreign Service Officers are hosting a department-wide innovation competition to select the top five initiatives that support the department’s corporate purpose/vision with a $20 million funding envelope. On the fifth floor, a top-performing Director is taking her last meeting before heading off for a three-year secondment as the chief sustainability officer at a Canadian-headquartered global cleantech firm, while a VP from that same company is picking up his diplomatic passport to serve as senior trade commissioner in Chile. Meanwhile a mid-level officer is having her semi-annual meeting with her career advancement officer to discuss the pathway to achieve her ambassadorial aspirations.
What is the best model for arriving at this imagined future?
It’s certainly not a matter of propping up the antiquated bureaucratic systems of our current diplomatic establishment that’s marked by risk-averse decision-making, limited meaningful empowerment of diplomats on the ground (from junior officers to handcuffed Ambassadors), ineffective human resource management (e.g. rigid job classifications, conflating seniority with capability, broken promotion competitions, an effectively non-existent talent management program), complacency among the upper ranks in which too many of the executives have very limited experience abroad, and incessant reporting loops and echo chambers of career bureaucrats communicating with other career bureaucrats. It’s these remnants of the past that have held GAC back from realizing its potential.
We’re now in a new era marked by geopolitical power shifts, a war in Europe, a global pandemic, and a climate change crisis. We need to identify innovative solutions to face this new set of global challenges as we carve a path for Canada to meaningfully contribute on the international stage while effectively pursuing our national interests. To embark on a path that positions GAC to realize the type of brighter future envisioned above, the following key imperatives must be incorporated into GAC’s DNA:
e More empowerment throughout the ranks.
is blessed with among the most talented workforces in the country. And yet, in recent years, it has largely squandered this most important of resources through a failed human resources system. GAC must undertake a complete overhaul of its human resources practices, with an aim to unleash this talent, empowering its employees at all levels, relinking performance to promotions and advancement, and providing the necessary career support and talent management — all with a view to creating the best Foreign Service in the world. Why send a multilingual senior Latin America expert to Bogota, only to have her spend half her time taking notes for her ambassador and snapping photos for social media? Why continue to staff the human resources branch with rotational Foreign Service Officers rather than seasoned and permanent HR professionals? And perhaps it’s time to rethink the well-worn assertion that it’s of no concern to GAC if a Foreign Service Officer leaves the ranks as there are hundreds waiting in the wings to fill their spot. While there still may be some truth to this for now, that line of thinking is a damaging commodification of e Taking smart risks. The prevalence of risk-aversion, particularly among the senior ranks, is a recipe for bureaucratic inertia, feeding a bias towards inaction and channeling energy into low value work. GAC’s workforce needs to be encouraged to take intelligent and calculated risks, with the default toggled to exercising the appropriate level of caution, rather than an abundance of caution. GAC management must recognize that the risk of doing nothing also has high stakes, 1.e., the “don’t rock the boat” mentality leads to missing the boat entirely. As a backstop to support this more ambitious approach, GAC could seek inspiration from the US GAC could seek inspiration from the US State Department’s “Dissent Channel” by embedding a formal process for ensuring that constructive criticism of potential policies reaches decision-makers.
Embracing cross-sectoral diversity. GAC needs to evolve into embracing a more heterogeneous diplomatic ecosystem that prioritizes a broader diversity of perspectives and experience, beyond just career civil servants. This model could include the development of a cadre of leaders with a proven track record of effectively navigating across disciplines and sectors. These professionals would seamlessly transition between the public, not-for-profit, and private sectors, potentially several times over the course of their careers, helping to break down parochial silos along the way. Given their breadth of experience, these seasoned operators would be better positioned to focus on developing big-picture strategic thinking — a critical piece that is all too often neglected compared to the monumental amount of time spent on transactional bureaucracy (e.g., briefing notes, coordinating committees). Whereas the US Foreign Service is known for embracing the “up or out” principle, GAC’s principle could be that you need to “get out to go up”. Ultimately, empowering a broader talent pool under this model would create opportunities we don’t even know we’re missing.
e A cultural rewiring. Too many among GAC’s senior
management and employees don’t feel responsible for the degradation of the department — which has become a shadow of its former self. Nor do they recognize how their actions are reinforcing a culture of complacency; indeed, their complacency is consistently rewarded with promotions and senior appointments. All undertakings should be imbued with a broader sense of ownership and purpose, and with a bias towards nimbleness and agility in all processes. Why are senior managers rewarded for taking on positions in the human resources branch, when we all agree human resources management is the problem? Since joining the Foreign Service in 2006, every single director of the assignments division had gone on to a Head of Mission position, and yet none accomplished their stated goals and the culture of nepotism
and opaque decision-making is worse than ever.
¢ Clarity of purpose. Most importantly of all, GAC
needs to have a clear purpose and vision. There is a critical unanswered refrain heard from many insiders: “What is our foreign policy?”. GAC needs to clearly articulate what it wants to achieve, how it intends to get there, how this will improve the lives of Canadians, and the mark it wants to leave on the world. Any such purpose needs to be clearly linked with Canada’s national competitiveness and industrial strategies (among others), and must leverage alignment with efforts in the private and not-for-profit sectors as well as academia. Sustainable resource development is one such area where there is broad alignment across all of these sectors — but we have failed to fully harness this convergence to pursue common goals. By deepening the integration between these sectors to achieve Canada’s foreign policy goals, we can achieve a much bigger impact on the world stage. In a re-imagined future, Canada could position itself as the leader in sustainable development at the forefront of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement, and forge non-traditional alliances with countries pursuing similar goals. Through the practices of Canadian companies, NGOs and others operating internationally, we could execute on this vision, lending significant credibility to our messaging. Unfortunately, under our current model, our words and perceptions about our reputation are often noticeably misaligned with our actions and the perceptions out in the real world. We talk about these issues, but are all too often absent on the ground.
Only once this clarity of purpose is adopted and engrained across the organization can GAC begin to reassert its relevance in the modern era as the central vehicle for leading Canadian diplomacy. Without a coherent strategy guiding our national efforts, we’re hanging our future on hope alone.
Hope and hashtags are not strategy, they are the hallmarks of a listless foreign ministry, grasping for purpose.
An urgent overhaul
There is an urgent need to fundamentally rethink the nature and function of Cana-dan diplomacy. This is the challenge of our time for Canada’s foreign policy. Those at the helm of the diplomatic establishment, whose careers have been defined by rising up through an antiquated system, may not be willing or able to provide the leadership required in this time of deep and profound change. The COVID-19 crisis has given us an opportunity to reshape our foreign policy and improve our diplomatic corps to better serve Canada’s national interests. Are we doing this? Are we capable of real change? The temptation will be to use the crisis to save money. If our ambition is global leadership, our goal ought to be to lead the world in areas where we know we can pack a punch and make a difference.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2022), pp. 18–21. Read the rest of this issue →
