Tradecraft > Consular Work
Josh Glazeroff
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Good officers consider all sides of the work
As diplomats, we have to learn to understand all sides in our work—the foreign government, Congress, the press, the American and host nation's public audiences. It can mean that the Department is a little bit slow in taking action, but understanding these broad perspectives is important because your gut is not always right. Understanding the different angles of our work requires us to be able to build relationships. This was a challenge for me personally because I’m an introvert, but the fact that I have built relationships that made a difference in U.S. interests is also what I’m most proud of. For example, when I was the Consul General in Pakistan, one of our issues was visa reciprocity—the period of time we give visas to host country nationals and the reciprocal amount of time U.S. citizens are given on their visas. My relationship with one of Pakistan’s senior leaders made a difference on this issue, and the way in which it happened was amusing and still makes me smile. I deliberately made a connection with someone who made a difference to the U.S. That’s the nature of our work.
A good consular officer will also have to balance the personal circumstances of people we interact with, the human element, as well as the tremendous amount of work we have to do. I tend to focus on the operations side and enjoy figuring out all the ways to get the work done effectively. I like to focus on this side because we have limited resources of time, people, and money, and yet the U.S. economic impact we have in a year is tremendous. How well we do our jobs directly benefits the U.S. economy.
But I can’t forget the human side of our work. In Pakistan, we had around 10-12 forced marriage cases a year, where a young Pakistani-American woman would call us desperate for help in getting out of her predicament. While I was Consul General in New Delhi, there was a terrible shooting in Wisconsin at a Sikh temple. We worked to issue visas to those traveling to the United States to grieve with friends and relatives. In these circumstances, it’s not just about moving the case work from here to there. We had to maintain the rigorous visa process but also show compassion towards those grieving. A good consular officer will try to get that balance right.
Ask yourself: why do we do it this way?
Asking this question can encourage creativity among staff members and improve how we do our work. In the first days of arriving to post, I recommend managers sit down with every single person in your shop and ask a series of questions. For example, what do you currently focus on? What would you like to change? If you have everyone thinking about what it is that we do and how we can make it better, it generates ideas and creativity. Also, building these relationships with your team is worth every minute.
In India, one of my colleagues used to always ask new officers to go outside and be a customer. The idea is that because new officers have fresh eyes, they can see if something doesn’t make sense from a customer’s point of view. This can be difficult when you’re a new boss because people don’t like you telling them the way they’ve been doing things is wrong, so it’s important to think about how you discuss a new approach with the team.
I like to offer a problem, challenge, or article about something that I’m curious about and see what the person I delegate it to comes up with. In my current job at the Bureau for Consular Affairs (CA), I was thinking about climate change. I asked a member of my team to look at this question, and now she’s running with it. This includes LE staff as well.
There are tools with 1CA and Teamwork at State that can also help us ask why. Even an exercise like the “5 Whys” can help you be more successful. I encourage people to do SMART goals. If you think about your goals, write them well, and measure them, the impact can be big. The 1CA toolkit can apply to just about anything, even your personal life. I like giving people opportunities to think this way.
I support regular training days as well. It’s helpful to take a break to think about what you’re doing, take time to “sharpen the saw,” and think about the process instead of just doing it. Although a monthly training day may seem like a big investment, it’s definitely worth the time.
Good communications skills are essential at every level in every job
In my current job in the Bureau of Consular Affairs Executive Office, I keep calling and engaging the field. I know that our counterparts overseas are doing the toughest work, and the more the field can get a sense of what Washington cares about, and the more Washington understands the field dynamics, the better job we can do. It’s tempting to go it alone out there, but that’s also not wise. To improve information sharing, we recently restarted CA monthly meetings to give a sense of what Washington is up to, and I think that’s been effective.
At the Operations Center, I learned better than anywhere else how to brief effectively. Time—or lack thereof—of course is the most important element, and I learned to use it wisely. We practiced repeatedly, refining our skills. I learned how important it is to know what your boss needs to know, and when I get information that I think the boss needs to be able to convey that effectively.
In American Citizen Services, good communications skills are essential. It is not as much about volume as it is about the human side of life events from birth to death. A good consular officer should ensure that people can tell you their story in a way that you can understand and to help them the best that we can. Sometimes people just want to be heard, and if you can convey that the U.S. Government is listening and they can call someone, it can be really effective. If a case comes in through the door, always ask what we can do and be proactive in communication.
We also learned from the repatriation of over 100,000 Americans during COVID that communicating with the U.S. public is critical. In Morocco, there were initial concerns of Americans being stranded and the Department not doing enough to help them. But with the great work of the team on the ground and effective communication, they got ahead of the story from a public relations perspective. In other countries we didn’t quite get the communication done as well, but it was an important lesson.
Engage in mentorship and sponsorship opportunities and build your network
Mentorship and sponsorship are both important. I try to carry out a long tradition of looking out for people from the start of their careers. I trace my approach to Mary Ryan, who would write to individuals all the time. I once got an email from her about a visa case, and the fact that she took the time to write meant a lot to me. Traditionally we in CA have an event during the weeks of A100 where senior leaders engage with entry-level officers. Historically, all officers were assigned a mentor. Even though my assigned mentor and I did not hit it off, I like the idea of connecting people early on. I am still in touch with people who I mentored out of A-100 and others I still try to stay connected with.
Sponsorship is a concept that’s particularly interesting because you’re consciously promoting people into a position and giving folks opportunities to succeed. Sponsorship also takes a deeper relationship between two people than mentoring, and we should encourage this across the Department. I have been pushed to do bigger picture roles in my career by sponsors, and I think that’s an essential part of the concept of sponsorship. Open opportunities for people to do assignments or work beyond their level.
Learn from experiences personally and institutionally
During COVID, I think we did some amazing work—getting 100,000 American citizens home was like nothing anyone has ever tried. Usually, one or a few countries experience a crisis at a time; with COVID, it was everywhere all at once. It required a level of negotiation, communication, resource allocation, and sheer human will. I give a lot of credit to people in the field for pulling this off.
There’s a saying that in challenging times, a good organization survives, a great organization gets better. CA is pushing this concept of adaptation and sharing good stories from around the world—how we’re providing better services, being more efficient, and how we can share that across our network. It’s not just short-term, but lessons learned from the experience will have an impact for 10-plus years. Analyzing how we’ve responded and adapted is allowing us to reflect why we do things a certain way. For example, we’re working on a revolutionary pilot to do more adjudication from home or improving how we do repatriation assistance. If we can learn to be more flexible after this experience, it’ll be a gamechanger.
There were times in my career where I thought I was doing the right thing and things did not end as I hoped. When I was Consul General in Pakistan, there was a prominent blasphemy case of a Pakistani-American citizen. We were operating under very constrained circumstances, and publicizing the case would likely have brought more danger to the accused. I used all the tools in my toolbox, brought all the people together to help that I could think of, tried to think about what mechanisms outside the norm might work, and sought out help from partners in local society. At the end of the day, despite our best efforts, the man remained in prison and was later murdered at a court hearing. One thing I think we did well despite the outcome was bringing in as many people as possible to help and leveraged as many resources as we could. The experience demonstrated how challenging our work can be as U.S. diplomats.
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