Managing 21st-Century Diplomacy: Lessons from Global Corporations

As the State Department prepares to implement recommendations from its first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), its leadership team must inevitably focus on management. This report, based on extensive interviews with executives from four major global companies – GE, McDonald’s Corp., FedEx and IBM – offers recommendations for how the State Department can incorporate corporate management lessons as it grapples with its own efforts at reform.

"The experience of global companies, while different in many ways from the Department’s work, carries valuable lessons for the State Department," write the authors. "Bold leaders at the Department should turn to America’s best corporations for insights as they build a Department poised to excel at 21st-century diplomacy."