Pride and Diffidence

How venerable institutions - and those in them - can survive and thrive

This blog is about how diplomatic skills can be applied to life beyond the Embassy. Self-evidently I wouldn’t be writing it if I didn’t believe that diplomatic skills - and therefore diplomats themselves can be useful in the wider world. And since I’m a strong believer in a realist approach to geopolitics - start by looking for the interplay of interests and capabilities - I have to admit my own (obvious) vested interest in demonstrating that as a former diplomat I still have something for offer. Having done a number of jobs in the over 12 years since I left diplomacy, I’ll leave it to employers (and family and friends) to pass their own judgement.

A recent conversation with a very distinguished former colleague who left the Foreign Office more recently reminded me that I wasn’t always so confident that it would work out well. Perhaps it doesn’t help that, in Britain at least, the conventional image of a diplomat isn’t always all that positive: gin-swilling, parking ticket-avoiding, supercilious and not particularly practical or commercial, just as an example. If that were your view of diplomats, you wouldn’t be rushing to offer one a good job, would you? What applies to the retired Ambassador might also apply to the retired General (or Major), though we are understandably quicker to recognise the personal qualities and professional skills (from logistics to technology) which a career in the Armed Services requires and cultivates.

Some countries, to the extent (if we’re honest) that most people think about diplomats at all, may be a bit more sympathetic. In some, it might be because Ambassadors are seen as a kind of aristocracy, and in some countries many may actually be aristocrats, or the culture may be that “grand is good”. In most countries, the title “Ambassador” stays with you for life - and that’s presumably because it’s thought to be a good, rather than a bad, thing. Being treated with a title doesn’t of course mean that you are regarded as useful, indeed it might I suppose suggest that you are thought of as having a distinguished past but not much of a future.

There’s a more serious point that applies beyond the world of diplomats - or generals, and reveals an interesting paradox. Those who are part of a venerable institution - a diplomatic service, a company with strong roots, a country with history and traditions - can often feel great pride but also real diffidence about their ability to survive and thrive in the world beyond, a sense at the same moment of unarguable superiority and worrying inferiority.

Diplomats will have seen this phenomenon at the national level. People will be proud of their history, their heroes, great victories (even sometimes great defeats), the unique situation of their country at a crossroads between world cultures, the perfect climate for whatever-it-might-be, nature, produce, traditions, arts, skills, strength of character, brilliance and innovation, religious fervour and/or religious tolerance, etc etc. But, once you get to know them, they will share their country’s weaknesses, national decline, a sense that they are being outcompeted on the world stage, that they are the victim of the Great Powers (remember them?) and so on. It’s ok to listen carefully to all this and nod along, but usually not a good idea to replay these criticisms in your own voice: none of us likes hearing our pride and joy being denigrated.

National identies are always fraught with contradictions. But what about those venerable institutions many of us have lived and worked in often for many years - large or small, public or private - which fill us with pride but leave us with the concern that we couldn’t hack it outside? Over the past decade or so I’ve had a number of conversations with former colleagues who’ve shared this concern and, in every case I can remember, they’ve all gone on to interesting and rewarding second (or third) careers where they’ve continued to be useful.

Maybe in a generation or two, as people move jobs far more frequently than in the past, fewer will experience this paradox, but I suspect it will still be there. It can be a problem, not just because it might inhibit you moving on and finding perhaps a more suitable life somewhere else but, even if you stay in the venerable institution, that combination of pride and diffidence is not the best recipe for the organisation - or the individual - to remain relevant in a fast-changing world.

What’s the solution?

First, it helps to recognise that the paradox exists and has an impact on everyone who is a part of the institution. And it’s fine. Being proud of our organisation and being prepared to stand up for it is a good thing. Being open to accepting that it isn’t perfect is also a good thing. But we should be conscious of the risk of insularity, in which, paradoxically, we exaggerate both the pride and the diffidence.

Secondly, get perspective: look at comparable organisations - other companies, Government Departments, Foreign Ministries, whatever: even if you can’t get inside them as deeply as you can with your own orgnisation, look for similar characteristics, positive and negative. You are indeed special, but not that special.

Thirdly, for the organisation, don’t be afraid of external expertise, but manage it sensitively, from the perspective both of those already in the organisation and those coming in. Done well, this can help the organisation both to be more effective at relating to the world beyond, and so to become more “competitive” (in whatever sense is relevant) but also to become better aware of where its real strengths lie. Done badly, those already part of the institution will feel undermined and resentful, especially if the outsiders are portrayed as “saviours” - and paid more than those they have been sent to “improve”. And those who are coming in risk becoming lost in a culture which is too strongly both proud and diffident to include them, which is why secondees into the civil service (for example) often have an unsatisfactory experience and the prejudices on both sides are sustained.

My own research a few years ago suggested that there’s a real need for “translation” between (especially, but not only) private and public sector cultures for those making the journey in either direction. I mentioned in a recent post Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s initiative to bring business expertise, apparently mostly from consultancies, into the Foreign Office. Provided that time is taken to focus on this translation, initiatives of this kind can be successful.

Fourthly, for the indivdidual, get out, even for a short time: a spell outside your own organisation and experience another organisation from the inside, with all its strengths and weaknesses. This is of course easier in the private sector than in some parts of government. As a diplomat, you could move to another Government Department, but in most cases (other than the occasional friendly secondment) moving to another Foreign Ministry would be described as defection rather than career development.

If you’re going to get out, think about getting quite a long way out. It’s more comforting (and maybe more lucrative) to move a small distance, to another government department perhaps or a very similar business in your own sector. But is that far enough to create distance from your existing world? (When I was still a diplomat, I took a couple of years out to work not in another part of Whitehall, but in industry and in another town. It seemed to me that, if I was going to get away, I shouldn’t just walk around the corner in Whitehall.) Is there enough difference of organisation and culture to enable you to think differently? If it’s too comfortable, maybe it’s not far enough.

Finally, as you plan your move - temporary or permanent, you’ll need to think about how you sell yourself to a prospective future employer. But it’s also an opportunity to think about how you see yourself. If you’ve been doing the same kind of job in the same organisation for some time, you’ll tend to think about what you can do in the language and the culture of your organisation. This may not be immediately understandable to those outside and using your own organisation’s unique language may mean that you find it harder to come across confidently. So start a list of what you can do and specific examples of what you have actually done and “translate” them into the language of the kind of organisation you’d like to go to. Get some help from someone in that world if you need to.

Here’s a (not entirely frivolous) example: organising a diplomatic national day reception (in the British case, known as the King’s Birthday Party) doesn’t sound like much of a transferable skill that qualifies you for the go-getting outside world. But call it “project management” combined with “cross-cultural stakeholder management” and you’re beginning to sound just like the management textbooks your prospective employer may be familiar with. Seriously, don’t let transferable skills get lost in translation.

Taking these steps, you’ll be more confident to make the move, but equally more confident in balancing the pride and diffidence if you choose to stay. And that will help the old institution too.