How diverse is upper management?
We need to do better in senior levels and higher pay grades, especially in leadership positions in our mission areas—analysis, collection, and science and technology. Areas like support, acquisitions, human resources are the most diverse. Why is diversity important in intelligence? Research shows that diverse thinking teams make better decisions. The IC was suffering from groupthink—decisions made by people with similar backgrounds, who were raised the same and thought the same way about the world. We need people of different genders, races, cultural backgrounds, foreign language capabilities, ancestry and heritage, sexual orientation, and from different generations. What’s different about minority recruiting? Minority recruiting is personal and labor intensive. We also have to overcome misperceptions based on the way the IC is portrayed in the media. In my old neighborhood [inner-city Cleveland], it might not go over so well if you tell people that you want to work for the CIA. We nee
