Even where we measure our efforts, we often get things wrong.  A Public Diplomacy Section (PD) might hold x number of events per year with x number of participants, but are the participants already our friends?  Do they already love America and mostly agree with us? If so, the PD Section, no matter the numbers, is not very effective and their events are diplomatically meaningless.

A Political Section might manage x number of official visits, but what do those visits accomplish for our national interest?  I remember when it was our whole-of-diplomacy project to push foreign access to the internet as we thought the internet was a doorway to democracy.  It was possible to measure the number of laptops we placed in school rooms but impossible to measure the expansion of democracy.  Oops.  We measured laptops because we could. But the internet did not bring more democracy.  Sometimes we measure the wrong things.

These attempts to measure our success do not even touch on our massive failures, measured or not, in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Lots of Foreign Service Officers were promoted because of their wonderful work in those lost causes.  Sometimes we are given an impossible task and like good soldiers we try - and fail.  There is no point beating ourselves up over those instances.

But back to everyday diplomacy and the hard question of measurement.  One of our cones lends itself better than others to measurement and demonstrates that we are not doing very well.  That was my cone for almost thirty years, the Consular cone.  Consular Affairs handles non-immigrant visas, immigrant visas, passports, Consular Reports of Birth Abroad and all manner of services to American citizens.  Fortunately, most of these services can be measured.

For example, the wait time for a visa appointment is measured and is even available to the public on Travel.State.Gov.  If wait times for U.S. passports become too long, that bad news makes the press.  Consular managers measure error rates on visa and passport printing.  We measure wait times in our waiting rooms.  We conduct customer satisfaction surveys. We can see the number of interviews our officers conduct and their various refusal and issuance rates.  If an officer’s visa decisions need adjustment, a Consular manager intervenes with that officer, based on hard numbers.

I remember when Consular Affairs put these metrics front and center and, although not perfectly, posted and promoted Consular Officers accordingly.  I loved to write evaluations for officers who reduced wait times through better management.  I remember helping an officer to be promoted because she increased the number of Hungarians studying in the United States on student visas (F1s).  It is hard to argue with numbers.  Numbers are not ambiguous like adjectives.  I told my officers that, if we say “John is really strong,”  a promotion board can wonder how strong John is.  Other people might be stronger than John. But if we say, “John can do 40 push-ups,” there is no argument.  We know that John is strong.  Consular work is like that.  It lends itself to measurement.

As a Consular Officer for almost thirty years, and one who still follows Consular Affairs in retirement, I can say that currently other factors than measurable competence are too often considered.  As a result, our services to the public are suffering worldwide.  We must do better.

There are anecdotal stories, of course.  Anecdotes are important because they are the tip of an iceberg.  An Indian woman waited two long years for her Immigrant Visa (DHS shared this incompetence story with State).  A Malaysian man mailed his passport to our visa center that held it for a month and finally returned his passport without a visa or an explanation.  Neither the Indian nor the Malaysian had any recourse.  We don’t answer phones, reply to e-mails or admit mistakes.  These hapless foreigners were in the maws of our faceless bureaucracy and had to suffer our slings and arrows.  I shudder to imagine all the other anecdotal failure stories.  They are too common.  You may know a story or two yourself.

What about the measurements? Visit Travel.State.Gov and see for yourself.  If you need a visa interview in London for a standard B1/B2 (tourist and business) visa, the wait is 100 calendar days. In Lagos the wait is 484 days. Buenos Aires 71 days.  Accra 460 days.  In other words, don’t bother.

No doubt, there will be excuses and reasons for these long waits.  More money is needed.  More capacity. More officers.  More windows.  I know the drill.  Sometimes the reasons are valid.

But I also know that Consular Affairs is infected with the same competence-killing viruses that pervade the rest of the U.S. government enterprise.  For example, work-from-home lasted far too long at State, even after the pandemic had mostly passed. Most good Consular work requires us to be in the office.  It cannot be done from home.  We waited far too long to require people to come to the office.

The work-from-home fiasco took our eye off the competence ball with its over-focus on workforce safety, convenience and comfort.  Similarly, DEI distracts us from the competence ball by an over focus on the physical characteristics of our workforce.  I do not care very much about the ethnicity, gender or nearly any other visible characteristic of a Consular Officer.  Competent officers come in all colors, ethnicities and genders and do not want management to focus on those characteristics.  My Indian friend and her African American fiancé didn’t care either.  We all want, or should want, competence above all else.

In the past, competent women, African Americans and others were routinely passed over due to their physical characteristics.  That was un-American and wrong. It did not make us more efficient nor help us fulfill our mission.  Focus on physical characteristics undermined our focus on excellence and degraded our service to the public.

It should not have to be said, that it is also un-American and wrong to pass over a white male due to physical characteristics.  It is remarkable that State leaders have said publicly that State is “too pale, male and Yale.”  These leaders, by this kind of statement, give permission for a harmful focus that takes our eyes off our mission.  As a white male (I could not choose my race or gender but did not attend Yale), I find the preceding comment offensive but as an American taxpayer I find it unhelpful.  Taxpayers want the U.S. Government to be competent and responsive, fulfilling its mission with efficiency and excellence, irrespective of the physical characteristics of the government employees involved.

Our diversity, to include non-physical characteristics, like personality type, thought ways and adherence to various value systems, is a strength, insofar as it helps us be better Consular Officers, better diplomats.

No one is impressed if we are extremely diverse and do a lousy job.

Let’s put the horse before the cart and renew our focus on competence and even on excellence.  As Consular Officers, let’s reduce our wait times, improve our visa decisions and our waiting rooms. Americans want us to do those things.

Americans also want their government to competently regulate our borders, manage our transportation systems and run our military.  Let’s do our part, as Diplomats and Consular Officers, to give them what they are paying for – efficiency and competence.