Q&A > Philip Konsett
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What inspired or motivated you to become a diplomat?
As a youth I developed an interest in military history, which gradually evolved toward conflict resolution and diplomacy. When I was 16, I spent a summer in Brazil and became beguiled by the thought of learning new languages and new cultures. While in college studying international relations I thought, if I’m going to try to join the Foreign Service, I’d better find out what it’s like. So I interned at State—in the Office of Central American Affairs—the summer before senior year, 1981, and just loved it. I worked with desk officers who were kind enough to take time to show me the ropes, some of whom later became respected ambassadors (Anne Patterson, Lino Gutierrez). Because the office was short-handed and busy (these were the days of the FMLN and the Contras), I had the opportunity to do a wide range of work. That sold me. Ironically, given my origin story, I later served in Europe, Asia, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East—but never in Latin America.
Who was your best boss and why?
Ryan Crocker in Iraq, Toria Nuland in EUR, John Bass in Turkey. They set high standards for themselves and their teams but didn’t neglect the human element of leadership.
What would you tell your a-100 self?
Ask questions. Listen. Then, when you have something to contribute—even if it means telling your bosses what they don’t want to hear—offer recommendations. Courageous followership is an element of leadership.
Describe a day you felt you made a difference.
I was the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator of Iraq’s Najaf province in 2004 when radical Shi’ite elements revolted against the CPA and the interim Iraqi government. CPA and the Army wanted to pull my civilian team out of our besieged headquarters, but I felt we had to stay and work with moderate elements to support the military effort to re-establish control of the province. When a ceasefire was declared two months later and I was able to hand authority over to an appointed Iraqi governor (who was later popularly elected), I felt I’d made the right decision. But that was two months of rockets and mortars, IEDs and ambushes, and a couple ground assaults on our compound as we worked to shift the balance of power in the province. I knew I wasn’t just endangering myself, I was endangering the FSOs, security personnel and others who had volunteered to remain under siege because I had. My civilian team made it out intact, but we lost three soldiers in the fight for the province. That’s a level of responsibility I don’t think they can teach you at FSI.
What has a colleague done for you that made you wish all of us had a colleague like that?
I’ve been fortunate to have a number of deputies and other subordinates who’ve been willing to come into my office and tell me, essentially, “I’ll do my damnedest to execute the course of action you’ve just laid out but I think it would be a mistake. Let’s talk this through.” We need more of that in the Foreign Service. “Speaking truth to power” shouldn’t be so rare we praise people for it in their evaluations; it should be part of our everyday culture. To achieve that, leaders need to actively solicit subordinates’ views. In the end, the buck stops on the bosses’ desk, but our people need to know their voices count.
What was the mistake you learned the most from?
I showed up for one early leadership tour where I’d been hired to shake things up and literally everyone who reported to me came to see me the first two days and said, “this place is terrible. You need to change everything.” So I figured, ok, the boss wants change, the team wants change, guess I’m empowered to change everything—and I started to do so in a pretty directive way. What I was too slow to realize is that just because my teammates had expressed dissatisfaction didn’t mean I could make changes effectively without engaging them in detail, getting buy-in, taking advantage of their experience. I caused needless offense and made change harder than it had to be.
What was your best and worst experience working with the interagency?
The way we had parallel civilian and military chains of command in Iraq and Afghanistan (where I served four tours in total) posed a real challenge to the concept of “unity of command/unity of effort.” Best experience was my tour as a POLAD (foreign policy advisor) in the Command Group of the Corps Commander in Iraq, Ray Odierno, in 2007-2008. LTG Odierno understood the value of having people on his team with diverse backgrounds who wouldn’t easily fall into groupthink. For 2008-2009 I moved to Embassy Baghdad, where Ambassador Ryan Crocker and DCM Pat Butenis worked hard with the generals to set a collaborative tone that cascaded down both the military and civilian chains. Conversely, my earlier 2004 tour in Iraq and my later 2009-2010 tour in Afghanistan were marked by distrust between the top civilian and military leaders, who didn’t hide it. Everyone took their cues from their feuding bosses to the detriment of civ-mil cooperation and our overall effort. The Foreign Service is going to go to war again someday, let’s not kid ourselves, and we need to learn to institutionalize partnership: whether we can cooperate shouldn’t depend on the individual leaders’ ability to play nice in the sandbox.
What is one tour you would recommend to FSOs to consider?
Do at least one exchange tour at another agency. And find out how all the other cones at State work. You don’t necessarily have to do a full out-of-cone tour to do this. If you’re a policy officer, volunteer for ICASS (the interagency budget council) or something like the Housing Board. (I learned a lot from Housing Board service about the challenges Management officers face trying to balance customer service with financial reality, lessons that served me well as a DCM.) Get out and do some public speaking early on; you don’t need to be Public Diplomacy cone to benefit from this. And Management and Consular officers should try to do a policy tour at Main State or overseas. I wish there were more opportunities for Diplomatic Security officers to do policy tours—I’ve served with Diplomatic Security officers doing pol-mil and counterterrorism policy tours, and they were terrific.
If the State Department had a mascot, what animal should it be?
The chihuahua. Whip-smart, fierce, territorial. Larger challengers underestimate the chihuahua at their peril. And my family chihuahua, who we adopted in Uzbekistan and took to several countries, understands but ignores instructions in several languages—just like an FSO.
What was the biggest challenge of FS life for your family, and how did you manage it?
FS life is generally harder on spouses and partners than on the employees. Constantly moving meant hoping that my wife—a development expert and former Civil Service officer, but not an FSO with the plusses and minuses of tandem status—would be able to find fulfilling work. Sometimes she found or created jobs; sometimes she remained at post without doing (paid) work; sometimes we ended up geographically separated. We spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan partly because my pol-mil specialty and her development expertise were in high demand, and we felt we were contributing. But that was an extreme solution.
What is your leadership philosophy?
When I was heading off to my first Embassy senior leadership tour, I commented to an Army friend that I intended to “put the mission first.” He responded, “Phil, if you put your people first, they’ll take care of the mission.” I’ve tried to remember that. I’ve found that if you are attentive to people’s professional development and personal needs, 95% of them will respond with dedication.
What tips would you give a first-time manager?
Leaders inspire people; managers organize systems. Both skills matter but you need to learn to do both. When your people ask you for guidance, before you tell them what you think, ask them what they recommend. Otherwise you train people just to execute tasks rather than to take ownership of their portfolios.
What would you do to change the State Department?
We spend too much time and money on administration and security. The Management/Security “tail” is ridiculously larger than the policy staff “tooth” at many embassies. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have Management and Security sections, but a little less focus on personal comfort and a less risk averse culture would help us to focus on our mission: advancing U.S. foreign policy interests. To be fair, these issues (particularly the risk aversion now endemic in American society) can’t be addressed by the Department alone.
What were your pet peeves?
How much time do we have? OK, here’s just one: the Department’s reluctance, decade after decade, to exercise its authority to assign people to postings that don’t align with their personal preferences. Everyone knows they can call the Department’s bluff. We should be able to direct people with specific skills and training (often acquired at taxpayer expense, on Department time) where they are needed, or thank them for their service and invite them to move on with the next phase of their lives beyond the Foreign Service. A former Director-General of the Service once explained to me that “we don’t want to send people places they don’t want to be, because we don’t think they’ll perform well.” Disagree. I’ve been in unpleasant places alongside military colleagues (particularly reservists and National Guard) who got ordered there contrary to their preferences. They griped, but they got the job done. I am confident our colleagues in the Foreign Service would bring the same dedication and energy to any mission.
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