I have been busy helping teach young diplomats some of the Darker Arts of diplomacy.

Part of the course involved us all filling in a personality profile questionnaire, which purported to show what sort of person we were and how we might respond to problems in terms of the four categories above.

My results were skewed massively towards Action and Ideas, with People a distant third and Process almost nowhere. Normally (sic) there would be a rather more even spread.

This came as no surprise, to me at least. Years ago I did the Margerison-McCann Team Management Profile test – ‘an extensively researched and proven psychometric tool’. This test has been taken by many thousands of managers round the world.

I ended up in a pretty rare category, the Explorer-Promoter: "only 7% of people tested have a more creative preference than you; only 3% have a more flexible preference than you". In other words, among these thousands of managers I was way out on a limb in exemplifying Creativity/Flexibility. Far more mainstream FCO or indeed other active successful managers were either a Thruster-Organiser or Concluder-Producer (ie demonstrating qualities associated more with linking outcomes and process than with non-stop restless ideas and innovation).

My annual appraisals down the years have been borne this analysis out: "his team complain of too many ideas" was a recurring refrain. 

The question is, what do taxpayers and Ministers want their diplomats to be and do?

The system likes people to be systematic. But at the top end where hard decisions are made for the public good, Ministers expect the system to be systematic (enough) – what adds vital value for them are officials who deliver results, preferably fast and consistently. It is nice if they are also good managers and ‘team players’, but if a Minister has to choose between Action and Process, Action (of course) wins hands down.

Why? Because the Minister’s reputation and personal pride depend on being seen as operationally effective, not on running a happy tidy Ministry.

As I look back on my FCO career one of my few regrets was that I failed to give the right response when the then Head of the FCO Sir John Kerr hauled me in on my appointment in 1999 as Deputy Political Director. That was for me a major and abrupt promotion which had ‘raised some eyebrows’ after then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook had asked for me to be given that job with its heavy Balkans responsibilities.

Sir John is not easily misunderstood. As he wrote on my 2000 appraisal, "…the ideas bubble up, and the 10% that are crap are a fair price for the 90%…".

A year later after I had worked hard to change my wayward ways, I duly showed measurable improvements: my ideas this time round were "95% excellent, 5% weird".

Anyway, Sir John hauled me in to give me a pep talk. His basic point was simple. "Listen, young Crawford. You did well with all that flashy stuff playing on the wing as Ambassador in Sarajevo. Now we have moved you to a key position in midfield, where we expect a different sort of game…"

I should have said (coolly) "I’ll play wherever you want me to play. It just depends how many goals you want."

Instead I merely curtsied prettily and shot off to try to bring down S Milosevic.

Successfully, as it happened. Yet my subsequent appraisal was oddly coy on the fact that Milosevic indeed had fallen; it was not altogether clear from that document that I had just helped Robin Cook deliver what he called his finest policy success as Foreign Secretary.

Instead the stuck needle remained stuck: "…comes across as shooting from the hip, and ideas deluge forth, some unfiltered … we could have done with a bit more respect for process". But was it not just a teensy-weensy bit possible that an excess of ‘process’ at the FCO and in other key capitals’ foreign ministries helped lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths across the Balkans in the 1990s?

So, FCO and other ambitious young diplomatic trainees. Be bold.

As an otherwise irritating mediocre European philosopher once said, " The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

Ditto for diplomats.  Of course Process is important – without it there is no Stability, usually a pre-condition for getting anything done at all. But it is Action and Ideas that make a memorable difference – and inspire People. To achieve that is why you wanted to be a diplomat in the first place.

That said, even if Ministers like your Action and Ideas, the system won’t. And Ministers come and go, whereas the system doesn’t. Which do you want to please?

Your choice.