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Interview: Carmen Medina on Diversity at the CIAAssociate Deputy Director for Intelligence discusses careers and workplace diversity at the Agency
Earlier this year Carmen Medina was named to Associate Deputy Director for Intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). That promotion came as the CIA and other intelligence agencies are re-thinking the ways they gather and report intelligence information. Carmen Medina, who is Puerto Rican, sat down with staff members from THE BLACK COLLEGIAN to talk about The Agency’s new approaches to a number of different topics and about how she thinks diversity at The Agency will ultimately help protect America.
TBC: This is a great opportunity for us to offer our readers a glimpse of some of the changes and some important information on job opportunities at the CIA. A couple of years ago, we heard of all the fascinating things happening here. As you know, we were here last year and have returned this year because of the fact that you have made significant progress in diversity hiring. We would like for you to tell our readers about job opportunities at the CIA from your perspective, one that is valuable because it comes from a person who has come up through the ranks in the CIA and achieved a significant position. First, tell us what the mission of the CIA is. CM: Historically, that mission, at a very meaningful level, is to save American lives and to protect US interests by keeping US policy makers and war fighters well informed about the threats and opportunities that they confront being members of a world community. On a primary level we provide intelligence information. In many cases we acquire secrets that US policy makers need to know to make better foreign policy. TBC: How is the CIA organized to accomplish its mission? CM: Right now we are organized into four Directorates. We have the Directorate of Intelligence that is comprised of analysts, each of whom becomes very well informed and hopefully knows everything about what goes on in his or her area of responsibility. These analysts communicate their findings to policy makers and war fighters. We have a Directorate of Operations comprising people who help acquire sensitive information, people who serve overseas much of their career. We have a Directorate of Science and Technology comprising people who develop more sophisticated ways of communication or collecting information, as well as people who collect open source reports from all over the world and analyze what’s going on in the world just from the media. Finally, and this is different from last year, we have reformed our Directorate of Support. It used to be called the Directorate of Administration. This Directorate comprises people who keep the CIA running, from people in logistics who maintain the infrastructure, to human resource specialists who help us recruit and retain good employees, to security. TBC: What are some of the misconceptions people may have about the CIA? CM: When I go recruiting I’m often asked whether a person can be a liberal and work for the CIA? The CIA represents America, and so our great desire is to represent America in our workforce. Many people mistakenly believe that if they are unconventional in their approach to life or in their thinking they could never work at the CIA. I would really like to reach out to those people who think this way and let them know that they should not dismiss the CIA as a career opportunity. Another misconception about us is that we carry guns. I have never fired a gun in my life. A third misconception may be that all of us live overseas. If living overseas is something that a person wants to do, that is something that the CIA can offer, but if living in Washington D.C. and coaching Little League are some things a person wants to do, the CIA is an agency where a person can do these as well. TBC: Tell us a little about the history of diversity at the CIA and why it is important to the CIA. CM: I have worked for the CIA 27 years, but during my early years the CIA was not very diverse. I would say that a kind of dominant theme for the 27 years that I have worked at this agency has been a growing commitment to become more diverse. Over the years we have become increasingly more serious about diversity to the point where we established diversity program offices. We encouraged the development of affinity groups as we began to use best practices in the recruitment and retention of a diverse population. Over the years the organization slowly began to realize that diversity was not a nice-to-have, but rather integral to the success of the CIA, that the CIA must look like America and like the world, and that we cannot understand the world if we have a uni-cultural environment. Once we realized that having a diverse workforce is essential for the success of our very mission, the CIA began to establish things like best management practices--where having a diverse organization and having excellent management practices are the same things. We now have a new Director of Diversity Plans and Programs, who is invigorating our diversity program and taking it to the next level. I really think that having a diverse workforce is a key element in protecting us from intelligence failures. TBC: What does the CIA do to get the current workforce to buy into diversity and to value diversity? CM: It is important for every senior leader to make very clear to our managers that promoting a diverse work environment is one of their primary responsibilities as a manager. The only way to ensure that it is a primary responsibility of the manager is by putting it in writing. This year, for example, I am working on the performance objectives for our management team; promoting a diverse workforce, having diversity outreach programs, and other practices are specific objectives that they will be held accountable for in their annual performance evaluations. We also promote employee buy-in to our values of diversity by encouraging affinity groups. TBC: Why would you say you encourage the affinity groups? What’s the value you see employees receiving from affinity groups? CM: As a Hispanic, I used to hear the melting pot metaphor all the time. To many people, melting pot means that everyone becomes like them. One day I realized that instead of melting pot, that this is a stew and that this stew changes with the addition of different ingredients. So, add new cultural components to an organization, and that organization should change. I realize that a lot of people didn’t see it that way. I don’t want everyone to become like the dominant culture: I want all of us to collaborate and work together. That is how an agency creates synergy. If everyone becomes homogenized, there is no synergy; it is only when each person retains that which is best of their own culture that you have synergy. TBC: Tell us how the CIA has been successful in achieving diversity as evidenced by diversity in senior rank. CM: I think we’ve had some success, but we are not where we want to be yet. In the last 10 years, we began to hire more African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and others, and it just takes a while for them to get the work experience that allows them to be competitive for senior positions. We do have several very senior Hispanic Americans, African Americans and Asian Americans, but I think, frankly, that as long as an agency is still counting people it hasn’t met its goal. TBC: What are some of the recruiting strategies that the CIA has undertaken to increase diversity? CM: Well you know a recruitment strategy that just sort of treats diversity as a numbers thing is pointless. So a diversity outreach program for recruitment has really got to be about connecting with significant universities, significant colleges, such as the HBCUs and getting to understand them completely. In other words, it’s got to be a two-way relationship. It can’t be a relationship where we go into a university and we have a once-a year gab fest and then, a certain number of individuals come; it must be a relationship where we are involved with those universities. We get to know the professors, department heads, and student organizations (African American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American). We speak to their classes, student meetings, and we offer them mentoring relationships. TBC: So, we know it’s not a numbers game, and we are talking about diversity of thought. How do you judge that? CM: I first became aware of this issue of diversity of thought about 20 years ago when I was running analytical efforts on Southern Africa when a young man joined our team and he was, to my knowledge, the first African American to work on South African issues. I remember becoming aware of the impact of his ideas and cultural frame-of-reference that he used for looking at issues, and how it eventually affected our analysis. Let me just say it wasn’t just a happy, happy situation; it was an interesting friction. It was creative tension every once in a while, but it really made a difference. And so, my first answer to the question is I know it is tangible. I know that when the mix of people working on an issue changes, so does the perception, the outcome and the analytical conclusions. That’s why we can’t dilute. We lose the advantage when we dilute. We must sustain the identity and move forward. But how does an organization measure when it has sufficient diversity of thought? One of the things that we must do in the Directorate is to promote a lot more creative analytical efforts. We can’t just have one view of the world; we must to have a lot of different views of the world. And so I think that one of the ways that we will be able to measure our success over the next few years is whether we can look at the finished intelligence product about Africa or on Latin America, for example, and say this analysis was written from different cultural frames of references, compare them to the finished products from 10 years ago on the same region. I will know that we have diversity of thought when I see the intelligence product and realize that the analysis of what’s going on in Latin America, for example, is independent of some kind of western assumption about how things should work. I know that’s where we have to get to, to where I read an analysis about what’s going on in India, Vietnam, South Africa, or wherever and can’t identify these assumptions. TBC: And I guess that goes back to keeping it objective when you have something where it comes from a variety of thoughts. If you have one thought process, that kind of convolutes the objectivity. CM: We have prided ourselves on having objective analysis, but was that analysis objective from only a certain perspective. To be really objective I could write from any number of perspectives and explain to the policy maker that, for example, I was talking to someone who had served in a particular country and he or she said, “I really like this country. People talk about corruption in this country, but they just don’t understand the way this particular society works. What goes on is not viewed as corruption in that society; it’s really more a social custom.” What we have to do is understand that every time we write something, we are applying a cultural framework to that piece, and the best way we can understand that cultural framework is by having a diverse work place. TBC: Let’s talk about some of the employment opportunities of the CIA. Give us a profile of the people you want to recruit. CM: We are looking for people who have a bachelor or an advanced degree and who have an interest in the world, something about what they have pursued in their educational experience indicates that they are interested in the world. We are looking for foreign language capability, but in some fields, for example, in arms analysis or other technical analysis, it may not be necessary. We look for people with critical thinking skills. They can come up with original ways of categorizing things. Critical thinking abilities and the ability to communicate orally and in writing are key elements for us. We are always looking for people who are interested in international affairs. Also, all of our people have to get a security clearance. TBC: What are the traits of a successful CIA employee? CM: Excellence in an organization occurs when people offer the organization, that mission, or that goal their discretionary energy. I don’t mean just working an extra five hours, I mean the extra amount of caring. I care about this mission, this goal, this organization, so I am willing to offer you some of my discretionary energy. Excellence occurs when employees offer their objectives, mission, and job that discretionary energy. I can’t make a person give me her discretionary energy, but I can create an environment that will lead her to want to give me her discretionary energy. TBC: Tell us the steps student in particular should take when applying for a job with the CIA. CM: Students interested in a job with the CIA should apply in their sophomore year. It takes six to nine months for an undergraduate to get the necessary clearance to work for the CIA. The deadline for applying for summer internships is November 1. We also offer Co-op opportunities and applicants should apply six to nine months before their projected start date. TBC: Tell us a little about what the interns and co-op students do here. CM: These students come to learn the business of intelligence, not to get coffee, to fax papers, or to do things that we might not have time to do. The purpose of our student programs is for students to understand this business while they are in school. Our interns are going to get the same kind of writing and research experiences as our senior analysts. As interns you are going to have mentors who are going to help you do that, so even if you come for one summer, you are going to get analytical experience. We bring our interns back in some cases two or three times before they graduate. Our goal is to offer full time employment to interns during their final summer with us. TBC: So as you move forward in your position what changes would you like to see and how should students be prepared to take advantage of them? CM: What I can tell from my vantage point is that this generation is interested in a more active kind of work, more variety in their career. So one of the things I really want to do is to animate the concept of analyst, to include more and different work experiences, and more time overseas. The measure of an analyst shouldn’t be just their ability to write a ten-page paper, although that skill is important. We want the analysts to innovate and really be open to new ways of analyzing and taking risks. Students who can show that they can collaborate with others, who are innovators unafraid of change, and who excel at a variety of subjects will do well with the CIA.
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