Interviews > John Tefft
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What do you consider your greatest achievement in the foreign service?
We join the Foreign Service to be a part of history and to participate in the process of making our nation's foreign policy. Occasionally we get a chance to actually even make or participate in making some history and I've certainly had some of those opportunities. I'm particularly proud of the chance I had to work with so many younger officers whose careers I was able in some ways to help or promote. Nothing makes me happier today than to see one of the officers who I worked with doing well in the Foreign Service, not just becoming ambassadors, but making real contributions to our nation’s foreign policy and security. That's something that I'm really proud of.
What was the biggest and most difficult crisis or moment that you worked on?
When the war in Georgia started in August of 2008, we made a number of important policy recommendations to Washington and at the same time, we took care of all of the embassy staff and families during a very tense time. We worked through that period and then after the ceasefire we worked to help Georgia recover economically, socially, and politically. It was an enormously challenging time. I was in Georgia recently for a conference and though Georgia still has its problems, it is still an independent state, is still striving to become more closely connected to the west and to be a better democracy, and has a tremendous civil society. I think the United States was instrumental in this outcome.
Could you pick one thing out that you did as an ambassador that helped you get results that you didn't expect you would need to do?
At my first posting as Ambassador in Vilnius, I came to the realization that while the Ambassador needs to be the Chief Executive Officer and the DCM the Chief Operating Officer, you can't just dump all of the management issues on the DCM and the management counselor. To be an effective Ambassador, you have to keep your eye on all of the different aspects of running a post and that means everything from managing your personnel, to knowing about schools for embassy families, the health unit, everything that affects your team if you're going to be successful. I am not talking about micromanagement, but rather monitoring operations closely, delegating and making sure the team gets both policy and the day to day management right.
We had plenty of work to do at every post where I served, but I wanted to make sure members of the country team worked well together and had that sense of satisfaction or accomplishment that could come from positive achievements but also from preventing bad things from happening.
Could you please tell us how and why you wrote notes to your team?
I learned when I was a younger officer that you need to make sure that people know that they're appreciated. When someone does good work and the boss recognizes it, it means something. So it could be by sending handwritten notes or sending emails, the important thing is that if someone writes a good cable, or if one of our Consular officers helped an American citizen through a tricky situation, I wanted to make sure that they knew that I knew and appreciated what they had done. I would also recognize them in staff meetings even if they were not present, because word would get back that the Ambassador recognized their work.
Another thing I did was that I had my office manager set up a system where we sent everybody a happy birthday email. Something short to wish them a good day and thank them for their work at the embassy. We did this both for the American employees but also the local national employees.
Easy to do and a small gesture, but it shows that you really are trying to reach out. I tried to know everyone’s first name, but that got hard when there were over 1000 members of the Embassy Moscow team.
Why do you think you were offered four Embassies, something extremely rare?
I think the bottom line is that people recognize me for being someone who paid close attention to the people at the embassy and to how the embassy operated, not just to the policy. They knew I could manage the embassy. Of course, I was blessed to have excellent DCMs. I worked really hard to get good DCMs so we could manage the team, give good policy guidance, and represent the United States well with the host government.
What is one thing you learned that helped you out?
I learned how important it is to pay close attention to managing the post and to read every document you sign because the devil really is in the details. You have to be attentive to the details. My wife, Mariella, was my true partner in every sense at all of the posts where we served. Both of us are Midwesterners and we were able to relate easily to people. We had a real interest in the countries and the people of the countries where we served. Empathy is such an important part of being a successful diplomat because people can size you up very quickly and determine whether or not you're genuinely kind or sincere and if you are really trying to listen to people.
How did this approach work in Russia?
In Russia, we developed new ways to reach out to people through soft power, especially using social media. I gave lots of different speeches and spoke on foreign policy, but also emphasized people-to-people ties. I traveled as much as I could. My staff and I reached out to people, any people who had an interest in the United States. We sponsored 27 concerts at Spaso House (the official Ambassador’s residence in Moscow)—everything from rock to classical to jazz. At one jazz concert commemorating the 100th birthday of Ella Fitzgerald, we streamed it and had 10,000 people online watching it live. By the time we left Moscow three months later, a quarter of a million people had watched the concert on our Embassy Facebook website. These are the kinds of things that in Russia, in particular, we needed to do to convey a sense that despite the official propaganda, that there was still something positive about the United States.
Could you tell us a bit more about what it took to manage the 2008 Georgian conflict as well as you did?
Then Georgian president Saakashvili and his senior staff would call me at all hours during the war with updates or important information which they wanted me to transmit to Washington. In doing so, I think we were able to give Washington a clear sense of what was happening. When the Russians began to break through the Georgian lines, we laid out what was at stake for American interests in the country. We aimed to be very clear in cables that we sent but also in emails. We wanted to keep our colleagues in Washington up to date with our best and latest information. Once the conflict was over, we supported a peace process and then worked with Senators Biden and Lugar along with senior Department and interagency officials to create a billion dollar package to support Georgia and preserve American interests.
Some other best practices?
In Kyiv, before my term ended, I asked the team to draft a series of eight or nine in-depth cables exploring the key issues at play in the country, but also prioritizing for Washington what the first things a new Ambassador should take a look at, to include an action plan. My very able DCM, Eric Schultz took the lead on this. I believe it is absolutely essential to prepare your successor for a smooth transition.
I did this first when I was DCM in Moscow. After Tom Pickering left in November of 1996, there was a 10 month gap before Jim Collins arrived as Ambassador. I served as Charge and John Ordway was Acting DCM. We decided to write a series of cables for the new Ambassador. The Embassy staff wrote 50 or so cables on every conceivable aspect of U.S.-Russian relations at that time. It was actually quite useful because we insisted that they be no more than ten paragraphs. It was a really good technique to get the whole Embassy pulling together. Even people in some of the agencies that did not normally write cables took the opportunity to make sure the incoming Ambassador understood all the important issues he would face on arrival.
What would you say to officers working in a challenging environment?
I would often tell younger officers about my first experience on the Soviet desk in 1983. Tom Simons was the Director and Lynne Pascoe was his Deputy. I worked in the Multilateral Section which was headed by Sandy Vershbow and then Bruce Burton. Craig Dunkerley, Dan Fried, and Eric Edelman were some of my colleagues. Two weeks after I got there in August 1983, the Soviet Air Force shot down a commercial Korean airliner and the US-Soviet relationship was plunged into crisis. It was just very frustrating for the next couple of years as we tried to work through the end of the Soviet era. I often tell fellow officers that you don't get a chance to pick the place you will serve or whether or not you will face good times or a crisis. But what you have to do is to make the best of it. Sometimes making the best of it is preventing bad things from happening as opposed to achieving good things. To be a Foreign Service professional is to be able to work in the bad times as well as in the good times.
Who was your most impactful boss and why?
I had the privilege to work for many tremendous people. I worked on the Soviet desk with Tom Simons, Lynn Pascoe, Sandy Vershbow, Larry Napper, and Jim Collins when he was DCM in Moscow. I think Jim really was probably my most influential mentor in the sense that he helped me understand Russia when he was DCM and we were working through the end of the Soviet Union. He also helped me understand how to manage people. I learned from his steady hand and his very precise policy perspective. I was later able to put this into practice when I served as his DCM from 1997 to 1999. I was also privileged to work for some of the other great stars of the Foreign Service. Tom Pickering, Frank Wisner, Bill Burns, Nick Burns, Jim Dobbins, Beth Jones—the list goes on and on. It's one of the great satisfactions of my career to have had a chance to work with so many of the smartest but most congenial and caring people I've ever met.
What do you tell folks thinking of joining?
Do join. It's a fascinating career, a chance to serve our country, to implement and influence the policy-making process. I think we sometimes don't appreciate enough how intellectually stimulating the Foreign Service is. It exposes you to so many different things and it really makes for a wonderful, satisfying life.
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