Last week I was back in stunningly expensive Geneva to give an ADRg Ambassadors training course on Mediation, Diplomatic and Communication Skills to an international organisation.

 

One of the exercises that captured the imagination of the course participants – mainly international technical specialists of differing levels of seniority – was a multiple-choice questionnaire on Diplomatic Skills.

 

Here are three of the questions, all based on real-life horrors. How would you answer them?

 

You are supervising the seating of VIPs in the two front rows at the theatre at a gala production sponsored by the ITO. As guests arrive you are told that two key VIPs allocated the best centre front-row seats are not expected to attend. Do you:

 

a)         do nothing

b)                   offer these seats to the two most senior VIPs seated in the second row

c)                   quickly try to find the Head of Mission to see what should be done

d)                   ask other VIPs in the front row to move along so that there is no awkward ‘gap’ in the front row, leaving a seat empty at both ends of the row

e)                   give the seats to two friends who were sitting in the aisle because of the crush

 

 

You are the mission’s lead Communications Policy officer. The HoM is busy and gives you several complicated oral instructions in English needing early action. You understand most of them, but not all. Do you:

 

a)         go back to interrupt the HoM and ask her/him to clarify exactly what he/she meant

b)                   start to carry out those instructions you did fully understand, and leave the others until the HoM is less busy

c)                   ask the Deputy HoM for advice

d)                   do nothing until the HoM is free to confirm exactly what she/he wanted

 

 

The Head of ITO plus you and one other top ITO colleague are in a late-night meeting with 20 other delegations arguing over a important UN budget deal worth millions. Several hours more work will be needed. Your delegation shares a pocket calculator to help with the complicated options.

 

Suddenly the pocket calculator runs out of battery. The junior staff on the delegation were all sent home long ago. An all-night supermarket five minutes away sells new batteries. Do you:

 

a)         volunteer to run down to the supermarket to buy a new battery

b)                   if the Head of ITO asks you to go and buy a new battery, insist that it is not your job as a senior diplomat to go shopping, and say that the delegation will have to manage by doing paper calculations

c)                   ask around quietly to see if another delegation will lend you a calculator

d)                   not mention the fact that the battery has died and do your best to use paper

e)                   ask the Head of ITO to decide what to do, agreeing to accept any instruction even if you feel it is immensely undignified or even improper

f)                     telephone the hotel to wake up a junior ITO colleague and order a new battery be brought to you asap (probably 45 minutes or more)