Public Service and Public Diplomacy

Thank you, Dr. Moore, for your generous introduction. Provost Carter, Dr. Alterman, students, faculty, and staff of The Citadel, members of the Center for Women, ladies and gentlemen: It is indeed an honor to be here and to be part of your Leadership Forum Launch. It was mentioned -- as we discussed my topic for today -- that I might contrast my time in the private sector with life as an Under Secretary of State. My first thought was that here I am now; answering to a hundred bosses, working many more hours -- all for less money than I earned at age 30.  But there are some other interesting differences and similarities. The charter of the Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs is to inform and influence. We’re better at the "inform" than we are at "influence." We inform, often the same day, of key speeches and policies in six languages, and later in 30 languages to every country in the world. But we’re not as comfortable at what it takes to influence others -- especially when the audience is hostile. The effort to influence requires persuasive communication, which we certainly had to master in the private sector -- or be left behind. The principles of persuasive communication hold true whether you find yourself in the world of marketing or of foreign affairs. One thing we learned in marketing every conceivable kind of product and service is that people learn more from failure than victory. If you can tell people what a product is not, they’ll hear you more readily than a good description of what it is.  Persuasive communication, however, is not about being a huckster with a predilection for shading the truth. We have only the truth. It’s hard enough to find the truth and state it clearly, isn’t it? Even the truth is getting harder to identify. We know that the Internet in the Middle East, which is available to the few, carries an assumption of truth just because it comes from this new channel. And the few whisper the word to the many. As former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said: "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. They're not entitled to their own facts." Unfortunately, our enemies are not attached to the truth -- factual or otherwise -- much less any respect for differing opinions. The deliberate distortions and lies may be vivid, even compelling, but I remain convinced that a lie will prove to have a short shelf life. Truth does prevail. Persuasive communication is not about manipulation. We can’t take advantage to gain advantage. To leave someone feeling manipulated -- whether by an ad campaign or a foreign policy campaign -- eventually turns them against you even more firmly than before. This has happened to all of us in books or in the movies. If we feel manipulated, we walk away feeling used. Persuasive communication is also not selling. In the private sector, we usually have a buyer and a seller. The buyer is interested, at some level, in buying the product or service. However, in the world of public diplomacy today, we have many complex audiences, but more often than not we don’t have any agreement that they will even listen to our proposition. So what is it -- what constitutes persuasion? First you start with the disciplines of good communication. We start by saying our message clearly and factually, and in doing so, you’re likely to get an appropriate response -- such as, quite simply, "I heard you." But, researchers learned years ago not to just ask people what they heard -- or to parrot back the points -- because hearing doesn’t mean understanding. Moving from "I heard you" to "I understand" requires finding a place of openness or relevance or personal recognition. We have to battle even our own culture to get to persuasive communication. I’ll never forget when Neal Walsh -- who is now a member of my staff, I’m happy to report -- told me about a sign over a door in the Berlin Embassy: No one has ever been fired for saying nothing to the press. Niemand, niemals nie gefuert worden der nichts, zu der Presse nie gesagt hat. That’s the antithesis of what I’m talking about. After all, life tells us that sometimes just showing up and taking the heat is the first step in changing attitudes. We certainly don’t get rewarded for innovating either. We organized a first-ever, worldwide conference of public affairs officers. A pretty simple idea, one used by virtually every modern marketing company in the world. But for Washington critics, it was a dangerous idea: The State Department has been casting about for better ways to project America’s image abroad. So they held a first-ever three day conference for every embassy public affairs officer from around the world. There has been some eyebrow-raising at the cost. Bringing 200 folks in from around the world, plus hotels, etc. around $350,000.  As it turned out this was a wonderfully productive meeting during which we discussed what works as well as overall goals. We heard from our leaders and we inspired one another. We shared best practices in many facets of communication -- through the speeches of the Ambassador, in op-ed pieces, in digital video content, in seminars and in briefing journalists. I’m very proud of our performance in both getting the facts out quickly -- and in multiple language versions. Here, for example, is the "home page" for our monthly Electronic Journals, where we handle complex, wide ranging subjects in depth. But simply informing is not enough, if only because we can’t rely on the openness and neutrality of our audiences. Our job, as I said earlier, is to inform and influence. The communications process is not a simple three-stage process -- unfortunately. It is not just a matter of the speaker sending a message and the listener receiving that message. The message is actually moving two ways simultaneously. It’s your stimulus and their response. Audiences and listeners insist on adapting your message to their history, their point of view, their closely held passions, myths, biases -- so three steps become four. In other words, to influence as well as inform, we’re going to have to accept the relative indifference and potential bias of the intended audience -- or even their hostility. This means changing the end of the megaphone that you’ve been talking through. Instead of shouting to get our message out, we must focus on the response we wish to evoke. It’s not what you say, but the response you desire. Focusing on the desired response brings you to the threshold of persuasion. This orientation is considerably less self-focused. We do adapt our policies and our statements to the sensitivities of our many constituencies. It happens every day out in the field and our diplomats are very skilled at doing this one-on-one. Still it’s not that easy to accomplish a desired response one-on-one or on a broad scale. Almost every novel, story, debate, and political process deals with how often these interactions go wrong. We are constantly trying to strike that balance between what you think you are communicating and the actual response you get from your audience. If you’ve ever been married, you know how easy it is to talk past one another. This lesson is one we keep learning. In November 2001 we tried to portray the consequences of terrorism, so we experimented with "what we wanted to say." These posters [below] were drafted for use in a Lebanon focus group that was already scheduled. Caption Reads "Terrorism Has No Future: Over 7,000 lives were lost to terrorism last year. Over 2,000 of them were children." Caption Reads: "Terrorism Has No Future: The lifespan of a human being is 68 years.The lifespan of a terrorist is 28 years." The stimulus looked good to me, but the response was: "I see pictures like this every day." (Death has no shock value). "What one person calls a terrorist, another person calls a freedom fighter."  With this wake-up call we then moved to encompass a broader view of the toll of terrorism and a clearer definition that a terrorist builds nothing, and is willing to murder innocents. When we do research we are looking for common values, shared moments, bridges we can build so that more open dialogue can begin. Let me warn you that more data are not better. Often it’s not even actionable. It may define the problem in a gross way, but if the information doesn't lead you to possible solutions, it’s not helpful. To define the problem too well is to almost freeze all hope of a solution. Take research on the attitudes of young people in the Middle East. By the time you’ve described their lives -- the sense of powerlessness and anger, the myths they sustain -- you can quickly conclude that nothing we do can possibly make a difference. It can be completely paralyzing. We approach the task of creating mutual understanding with the recognition that we must know where they are coming from -- myths, biases, closely held beliefs -- and try to engage from that point. Our desired response as we seek to dispel misinformation is pretty modest: "I didn’t know that" and "tell me more." But who is "they?" Well, we’re determined to reach beyond government heads and the elites to the street. This is where the information revolution is happening -- and our share of these voices is smaller and smaller -- so America must find way to reach and engage a wider, younger, more diverse worldwide audience. There are, for example, about 1.2 billion Muslims in the world today, and they are overwhelmingly young. In Egypt, as in much of the Middle East, 35% of the population is under 15 years of age – youths who sit down in front of satellite television or log onto the Internet. Elites and opinion-makers always count, but they no longer hold a monopoly on making policy or forming attitudes. Right now, unfortunately, there are many important conversations going on -- many held in shrill and sometimes inflammatory voices -- in which we have no presence. So we have an ambitious goal -- to reach the young in these societies. And who will be the messenger? Fortunately, for us, our own Secretary of State is world-renowned and liked and is so comfortable and confident -- he is a superior messenger. Take this recent situation, one that many officials would run from: In February of this year, Secretary Powell appeared live on MTV to take any and all questions for two hours. He tackled everything -- from AIDs in Africa to the U.S. as a "destroyer" -- with a television studio audience of young people in seven different cities around the world and a viewing audience of some 375 million globally. There were participants via satellite from Cairo, London, Milan, Moscow, New Delhi, and Sao Paulo. Here is how he answered a question about the U.S. as the "Great Satan."  Not many of us could be as believable and therefore as persuasive as Secretary Powell. The MTV global program also answered our need to generate large audiences. We can’t be content with a speaker who reaches 200; we need 2 million and all our posts are asked to take on this goal of magnification. Another guideline we set ourselves is to access a more diverse set of communications channels and techniques to reach these larger audiences. Our Arabic youth magazine, now in development, came about because we surveyed the reading material in the Arab world and the U.S. is virtually invisible. As these books covered the reconstruction of Afghanistan for instance, not one article mentioned our presence or our clear leadership role in this country’s development. We are also creating virtual reality pictures of American life: a moment from, say, the show, Oklahoma, an actor reading the Gettysburg Address, a walk down a typical American town and library facilities. We’ll see these "American Rooms" installed in schools, universities, libraries -- maybe even shopping malls. Quiet discussions in foreign-ministry chambers alone no longer cut it. A foreign policy that cannot be explained or sustained in the court of public opinion is simply not an option. More than 4 1/2 million people in the Middle East now use the Internet; Sixty percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have access to satellite television; Coverage of what is termed the second intifada among the Palestinians has drawn the largest Arab audience ever to see television uncensored by governments. That is why we have to help train their journalists. The TV Co-Op for Pakistan Television (which does not have the resources to maintain a Washington bureau) was a very successful initiative we recently undertook. We needed to convey some sense of American society beyond the distortions and stereotypes that so often dominate the media in South Asia – and elsewhere for that matter. We ensured that the TV crews had genuine access to senior officials -- meaning interviews with Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Armitage, and USAID Director Natsios. They were able to travel freely and develop features on the Pakistan-American community, Pakistani victims of the World Trade Center attack, and the Islamic Center in Baltimore. Each feature was uploaded by satellite for immediate broadcast in Pakistan. This [film clip] is from a broadcast of a Pakistani journalist's interview with the world’s most talented diplomat . . . this five-year-old Muslim girl.  [Editor's note: The transcript of the clip is available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/obs/vid/16012.htm or view the clip formated for DSL/cable or dial-up modem, or listen to the audio-only file.  The two photos at right are from the video. ]  Equally important, I think, the Pakistan television crew themselves were moved by the intensity of their experience and their interactions with Americans in many different venues. We’re innovating in research by fielding studies that track the feelings and emotions which underlie the conclusion, so that we can virtually "walk in their shoes." You don’t speak the same way to someone you know well. That’s why we work hand-in-hand with colleagues who are on the ground in the respective countries, who intimately understand all of the nuances of each culture and region. Finally, persuasion means recognizing that we can’t be afraid of the emotional side of the issues. In the private sector, marketing executives know that emotion is the primary leverage when defining and discriminating about their products. We can’t leave the truth, but many issues today are intensely emotional -- like religion. In August, for example, our embassy in Malaysia sponsored a 2-day conference, "Religious Pluralism in Democratic Societies." Instead of talking about the value of religious pluralism, we arranged a live demonstration of pluralism in action. The conference brought together more than 270 scholars, officials, journalists, and religious figures for an open and emotional discussion of democracy, diversity, and mosque-state relations.                               It was first time in anyone’s memory that spiritual leaders of Malaysia’s five major religions have ever appeared on the same stage together. There were also representatives and speakers from Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S. -- and it was widely covered by the press. Many Muslims believe the U.S. is anti-Islam. These deeply held beliefs are, in fact, not true. There are many Muslims living in the U.S. and they are successful and free to practice their religion in this country . . . more free to do so than in some Arab countries.  Across all nine countries that were surveyed, respondents at 50 percent-plus level feel:   No meaningful dialogue can start without addressing this deeply held belief. To dislodge such strongly held biases, we need to: Attain new information; Provide it in a relevant manner; and Deliver it through a credible source. Few things are as emotional as a clutched-to-the-chest belief, so we cannot simply assert we are not anti-Islam. There are very significant other values that these two cultures do have in common: faith, family and learning. Both countries ranked them as 3 of their top 6 values, with "family" being first for the USA and "faith" being first with Saudi Arabia.           Can we communicate that we care about faith in our country, that religious tolerance is fundamental to us – and in such a way that "they can hear?" Well, we can if we ask Americans who are Muslim to do the speaking, such as Dr. Elias Zerhouni, head of the National Institutes of Health. [click for video available for DSL/cable or dial-up modems; the audio portion is also available in text format and is reproduced in part below.] [In the words of Dr. Zerhouni]: "The notion that science can improve health has been borne out in Islam for many centuries.  There is a clear belief that through knowledge you can improve not just medicine, but the lot of man. "I was born in Algeria, in a small town called Nidroma.  I became very interested in medicine because I had an uncle who was a radiologist. I came to America in 1975, and everybody said, 'Johns Hopkins is the real Mecca of medicine.  If you could go there, you'd do great.'  I was totally embraced by the people there, my professors.  Everybody told me, 'We're all immigrants here, we're all from different places, and we all meld together.' "The mission of the National Institutes of Health is to advance knowledge about medical care and diseases that affect mankind.  There are 18,000 people working here in Washington, and 45,000 projects that the institute funds throughout the world. "When we develop a vaccine, it is made available worldwide.  When we develop a new treatment, it is available worldwide.  So it impacts on the health of everyone on earth. "I was nominated to this position by President George Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate.  What I can tell Muslims around the world is,  I don't think there is any other country in the world where different people from different countries are as accepted and welcomed as members of a society and as good citizens. " Caption for photo above: Dr. Zerhouni meets President Bush (top) and photos of Dr. Zerhouni at the National Institutes of Health. Following are several posters of other Muslim Americans who are also featured in our mini-documentaries: Below are front and back covers from the publication "Muslim Life in America," along with a page displaying American mosques:   Even with valid research and legitimate insights, following the communication discipline of focusing on the response, this effort is controversial and troublesome to implement. e must deal with groups in the U.S. who question a focus on one religion; with groups in the Middle East who see this as pre-Iraq invasion propaganda; with the ambassador from Egypt to get it on Egypt TV; and with satellite television stations like Al Jazeera. The Justice Department clears along with our lawyers and with Diplomatic Security. We also arrange for the proper placement of the speakers who are connecting this effort to other substantial initiatives. This brings me to that first question -- the differences between private and public experience: In this job, I find I need a lifetime supply of patience and collaboration. Everything has to be cleared. It slows things down wonderfully – often painfully -- but that one wrong time can have grave consequences. Taken to extremes, you can engage in a world of endless meetings. A meeting is not, in and of itself, an accomplishment. But it is -- or can be -- in Washington. So we see lots of paper coming from think tanks, seminars, forums. I approach these with real trepidation -- but I also still have a lot to learn. For example, the Council on Foreign Relations recently published a white paper on public diplomacy that was most thoughtful and influential -- advancing the understanding and support for public diplomacy -- in Congress and in the international arena of diplomats. I’ve left the most important difference between private and State life for last. It’s the size of the job. The consequences can be earth-changing, the value enormous. And that opportunity to contribute is what, I’ve learned, is the hum you hear in the halls. "We can, we must make a difference." Let me profile for you a "typical" State person: Beth Jones, Assistant Secretary of the European Bureau. She looks like she was the cheerleader in high school -- blonde, a beautiful smile and the most wonderful energy. She has a masters degree and is fluent in Russian, German and Arabic. She has supervision of 53 ambassadors and 82 posts in 48 countries, the Holy See and five multilateral missions. Her budget is $335 million and some 2,500 people. She’s concerned with the security and safety of the embassies and issues like NATO, peacekeeping in the Balkans, budding democracies, market economies, Caspian Energy, etc., and of course, the war on terrorism. Her salary: $130,000 a year. To negotiate just one agreement: the Declaration of Strategic Partnership between the U.S. and Uzbekistan these steps are involved: November: EUR drafts its ideal document and the Uzbeks draft their ideal document. December: Each side identified issues and differences. January: State does draft 3. February: Beth Jones and Foreign Minister Kamilov initial agreed document. Secretary Powell signs. That’s one of hundreds of such agreements. We in the private sector must be concerned about profits and shareholder value. In spite of the recent abuses, I believe this is an honorable pursuit. When we worked around the clock to return Ogilvy and Mather to vitality from a steep decline, the 8,000 people who worked there could envision a more stable future. The shareholders literally saw their investments double. If such productivity could be offered the Middle East, our troubles would be lightened. But the goal of State is always looking outward to engage the rest of the world in a positive relationship and to protect the citizens of the U.S. It’s an elegant job. The rewards are immeasurable, but it’s also frustrating, cog-like, or turtle-slow, and it’s no place to get rich. It’s not safe in some places and can be very stressful.  But it’s a large life. And these people who serve the State Department and this nation are my heroes. Since I find I’ve closed with a sales pitch, I may as well show you our recruitment ad for the Foreign Service. [below] [The text of the recruiting poster, "Secretary Powell: This man wants to talk to you about a really important job," is reproduced to the right of the poster.]  Get ready for the opportunity of a lifetime. Register today for the Foreign Service Written Exam. As a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, you'll experience the excitement of being on the frontline team of U.S. embassies and consulates.  To meet today's foreign policy challenges, we're looking for talented Americans from all backgrounds who want to serve our nation. There are five career tracks from which to choose: administrative, consular, economic, political, and public diplomacy.  There is no better way to experience a global lifestyle while making a difference in the world.  Take the first step towards your career in diplomacy with the U.S. Department of State.  Register immediately for the September 21 Foreign Service Exam at www.careers.state.gov/exam8 Equal Opportunity Employer Register by August 13 (August 15 for overseas sites) for the September 21 Exam.* U.S. Department of State -- Be the Face of America to the World www.careers.state.gov [*Editor's note: please see www.careers.state.gov for current registration information and deadlines.]