Junior officers have been quick to pick up on the fact that unlike the military, training is not valued in the Foreign Service, that senior officers brag about never having had training except for foreign languages. In contrast to their elders, younger officers regard well-developed training programs as a mark of a “serious organization,” the only kind of an employer they are interested in working for. They want their organization to stake out its mission clearly, define its expectations, develop its people, encourage change and innovation, and either get the resources required or scale back the mission. They do not think it is reasonable to be told that it is their job to “lift the invisible veil and figure out the real questions and answers that lie behind it.”
Developing Diplomats for 2010: If Not Now, When?
Stephanie Smith Kinney
Senior Seminar Project │ February 2000
American Diplomacy Summer 2000
