Michele Rigby Assad's Blog

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Are you perpetually underestimated? Disrespected? Or even harassed?

We’ve come a long way since the 1980s when women flooded the workplace and sexual harassment and sexist attitudes were quite prevalent. Things are different now. We’ve developed and matured as a society. We are getting better about not pre-judging people and making space at the table for everybody. That progress notwithstanding, the recent experiences of two female friends of mine suggests that unhelpful attitudes and aggressive behaviors still plague working women.

Sarah (not her real name), who is a real estate professional in Florida, continually gets hit on by men who use the excuse of listing properties to try to wine and dine her. Several male clients have made inappropriate comments about her looks, “You’re so beautiful!” or question her repeatedly about her marriage status, “Are you sure you’re married?” Then they harass her by continually asking to meet over coffee, a drink, or a meal, even when she declines. What surprises me the most is that they don’t want to take “no” or “not interested” for an answer. (She’s happily married, by the way–not that this matters.)

 

Paulina (not her real name) is a tech professional based in Europe. She is disrespected by male clients in the Middle East who don’t believe they should be negotiating the terms of a business agreement with her. They see her as inherently incapable of leading these contract negotiations due to her gender. Having operated in that part of the world, I know how entrenched this attitude can be.

You can’t help how others perceive you when you walk in the room, but you have a chance to change the terms of those interactions before you walk back out.

The following are  three ways to manage inappropriate interactions and turn those disadvantages into your greatest successes.

Your body language matters. I’ve had CIA terrorism sources who were enamored with me stand uncomfortably close and continue to hold my hand after shaking it at the beginning or conclusion of an operational meeting. In these cases, I deliberately pulled my hand out of their grip. If I had not done that, they would stand there with my hand in theirs, for as long as possible. In parts of the Middle East, it is deeply inappropriate to touch a woman, so they try to use the handshake to keep a good thing going.

Then after breaking the grip, I had to take a step back to create space between us. If my interlocutor moved in close again (which they normally did), I took another step back. It was a delicate dance where my terrorist and insurgent sources wanted to see how far they could push the limits of our covert meeting. This physical negotiation was subtle, yet every little movement and counter-movement mattered.

In addition, to counteract the defensive body language of backing away and creating space, I always stood with my shoulders up and out, and my feet squarely facing the person. This stance indicates authority and shows a lack of fear or intimidation. A straight and direct posture also underscores that you are not on the defense and are not retreating (even if you are). You don’t want your body language to reflect any of the discomfort you may be feeling inside. You want to appear confident and in control.

Deflection, deflection, deflection. No matter what, you must stay in control of the direction of the conversation. Your client may try to take the discussion sideways, but you don’t need to take the bait. Stay on topic. Bring the conversation back to the issue at hand. When dealing with a statement that is inappropriate, ignore it and change the topic. Don’t ever feel you have to acknowledge such comments, just focus on getting the conversation where YOU want it. You may need to deflect repeatedly in order to draw a clear line in the sand and communicate what you will and will not tolerate. You are there to discuss business, so do just that.

If all your efforts to deflect still don’t succeed in getting the conversation back on track, remove yourself from the meeting or conversation. (And no apologies are required if you have to do this.)

Focus on your expertise. Display your intelligence prominently. No matter what happens in these interactions, your job is to constantly refer back to your experience, your knowledge, or your successes and how they are valuable to your client. If your client doesn’t know you’re smart, they’ll never figure it out with their heads in the gutter. Therefore, it is your job to clearly demonstrate your intellect and professionalism. In these meetings, you must continually remind the client of who you are and why they need your professional services. The good thing is you have their attention; you just need their attention to be focused on you for the right reasons.

One way Sarah could have handled the recent interaction with a client that kept trying to ask her out on dates, is the following:

Sarah: “I would be happy to discuss your property and the possibility of listing it with my firm.”

Client: “Great! I would love to maybe take you out to lunch or dinner to discuss.”

Sarah: “Thank you, but no, that’s not necessary. Let’s meet at my real estate company’s office, so I can understand more about your property and explain what I can do to get this property listed and sold. That’s how we normally proceed.”

Client: “But I’d really like to take you out.”

Sarah: “Actually, my husband wouldn’t like that, and neither would I. But you should know that I am looking forward to learning the specifics of your property so I can find the most- clever ways to market it. Did you know that in 2020…..(say something smart about the market to display your cutting-edge knowledge).

Client: “Are you sure I can’t talk you into a coffee? You are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.”

Sarah: “Thank you, but no, I am not interested in that. However, I am ready to get your property sold, so let’s get down to business. Why don’t we schedule a time to meet at my firm’s office? Then I can also introduce you to my broker…..”

Then, if the person continues to harass, Sarah has to make a choice to either bring a colleague with her to meetings to keep things safe and professional or hand the client over to another colleague. Sarah should feel comfortable doing business professionally or not at all. There are plenty of fish (clients) in the sea.

As for Paulina, the most effective way to address the gender roadblock is to acknowledge it. She should refrain from doing this in front of a group, but during a one-on-one conversation with one of her interlocutors—otherwise, it would not be well-received in that specific culture. She could say something like, “I recognize that you are used to dealing with men in contract negotiations and that you probably feel more comfortable doing so, but I assure you (insert something here that shows why you are so amazing at that job/activity).”

She could then say, “I am known to get the best deals for my clients, and companies in country A, country B and country C have raved about how happy they have been with our product/service, and how I was able to get them xxxxx (fill in the blank).”

In other words, you don’t want to focus on gender, but focus on what you are bringing to the table that benefits your client. Basically, you have to diplomatically explain why dealing with you is in their best interest. They clearly don’t know, so you have to tell them. It may feel awkward being so direct and tooting your own horn, but the Middle East welcomes directness when there is a potential problem or disagreement among parties. It is a relational culture, so the more they deal with you, the more comfortable they will become.

Also, the Middle East didn’t just open up to the rest of the world. If they are deeply uncomfortable with you, a woman, you could also suggest they replace their negotiator with someone who does. Because even in the Middle East, that is no longer an acceptable attitude or approach to international business. Some of the most forward-leaning businessmen I’ve met and worked with have been in the Arab World.

Once you’ve turned the tables on your problematic interlocutors, the liability of being different could become your greatest strength.

Because you unique, then working with you becomes something of a treat. Your professionalism and intellect are unmatched and when they figure that out, then they will be glad they got the chance to work with you and benefit from your commitment to excellence.

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What We Discuss with Jordan Harbinger:

Is working undercover for the CIA as exciting as it looks in the movies?
How does an isolated Florida girl grow up to be a CIA operative in the Arab world?
What goes into gathering intelligence from terrorist sources, and what motivates them to cooperate with the CIA?
How did Michele overcome a strong case of imposter syndrome while working at the CIA?
What does it mean to “get off the X,” and why is it important to understand even if you think you’ll never be ambushed?
And much more…

Tune into the show by clicking here! 

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TEDx LSSC

She smiles a lot. 

(Happy people aren’t serious people.)

She’s so friendly. 

(She’s too nice to be a counterterrorism expert. She probably doesn’t know very much.) 

She’s easy to talk to. 

(She must not be particularly driven or determined. She’s not leadership material or someone on the cutting edge of anything. Nice people don’t rise to the top, they support others.)

Terrorist: She’s young, female, American.

(Oh, this is going to be fun! I can pull the wool over her eyes and she’ll never know that I’m lying or manipulating the situation.)

I’m used to the assumptions. I’ve dealt with them my entire life. It is hard for people to merge the two seemingly different versions of me: an outgoing and kind person who cares very much about others–with the counterterrorism and Middle East expert. Most human beings are conditioned to associate a leader with someone who wields power in a more forceful manner. Those with sunny dispositions are often relegated to the second tier or the back row. 

This cognitive dissonance is a product of an unconscious bias that sets our expectations of people’s strengths, weaknesses, personality and interests. Our assumptions are based on a lifetime’s worth of input, so this happens without our cognizance. We are not aware that this process is occurring. 

When the CIA hired me in 2002, the human resources department had a clear preference (conscious bias) to funnel women into one particular position (spending more time behind a computer managing intelligence collection) and men into another position (spending more time out of the office/in the field handling and recruiting sources). This policy completely ignored strengths or experience. I found this odd and couldn’t understand how several of my colleagues could do a better job handling sources when they’d never been to the Middle East and didn’t know the difference between Sunni, Shi’a, Christian and Kurd in Iraq. 

Turns out they weren’t better or more capable than me, but it took me (and the CIA) years to figure out that they had this amazing, untapped resource in many of the females they’d hired. We can—and should—be doing a better job in the national security sector hiring people who have the knowledge, experience, linguistic and cultural skills required to do intelligence well.

In the workplace, subconscious bias affects internal processes such as hiring, promotions, leadership development, training decisions, and project management. In terms of operations, subconscious biasaffects our marketing and sales strategies, product design, prioritization of projects, and so much more. 

That is why it is critical to understand our proclivities to prejudge people based on appearance. By simply understanding the phenomenon, we already begin to thwart it.

How does this affect your business?

Bottom Line: You might be skipping over the most insightful and dependable employees who have the requisite strengths for wild operational success. You may be focused on others who are less talented because they are louder, more forceful in their interactions, or you simply feel more comfortable with them. Consider the possibility that you might be unwittingly passing over your best employees, leaders, audiences, clients, or buyers. 

What can we do about it?

The first step is acknowledging that we can do a better job.

The next step is endeavoring to dig deeper and get to know others better. Ask more questions. Try to determine whether unconscious bias has affected the way you’ve done business and identify one way to start rectifying that. 

As my girlfriend who is often on the receiving end of conscious and unconscious bias suggested, we shouldn’t write others off but, “Give others a chance to amaze you!”

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You don’t need money or worldly experience to raise successful children.

That’s me on the left, and Julie on the right.

No one could have ever guessed that two shy little girls who liked to dress up in ballet tutus would become future employees at Google and Chanel (my sister Julie) or the CIA (where I ended up).

Growing up in a trailer park teeming with kids was a pretty fantastic place to spend our formative years. But rural Central Florida in the early 1980s wasn’t exactly a stepping stone to prestigious careers in Washington D.C. or Silicone Valley.

Instead of prepping us for Ivy League educations, our parents focused on the basics and working hard to move us more solidly into the middle class. We rarely ate out at restaurants. We relied heavily on hand-me-downs from neighborhood playmates. 

There were no special tutors or SAT prep classes. There was no talk about the kind of colleges we should attend. There were no discussions of politics, economics, technology, business or international affairs.

That’s why we still pinch ourselves and wonder, “How did we get here?” Though we weren’t exactly trying, passion and pure grit would take us far beyond the borders of Central Florida to places like New York City, San Francisco, Cairo, Dubai, and Paris.

Julie Clow, my younger sister, earned a PhD in Organizational Behavior and Development and worked as human development expert at Google and an HR executive at Chanel.  I acquired a Masters degree in Arab Studies and spend ten years serving as an undercover operative and counterterrorism specialist in the CIA. 

So how did we achieve so much in our careers and go places we had never even dreamed of?  What was the recipe for our success?  

The good news is that it had nothing to do with financial resources or worldly knowledge and everything to do with the attitudes our parents cultivated in us. Our stories illustrate that the goal shouldn’t be to get your child into the right preschool, prepschool, or Ivy League institution. The secret to success is far simpler and more profound and allows your child to make the most of whatever circumstances they encounter.

Here’s the ingredients for our success:

The power of positive thinking. Starting at a very young age, we were schooled in Zig Ziglar, Rich Devos and Norman Vincent Peale. At only three and four years old, we listened to voices over the cassette recorder telling us we could be winners if we wanted to. We remember thinking, “I want to be a winner!” What could that possibly mean to a pre-schooler? As it turns out, a lot. Don’t underestimate the power of the words—both positive and negative—to seep into little minds. Your words have the potential to shape your child in profound ways. Those simple concepts actually defined who we were as human beings. We have keen memories of believing that we were valuable members of society, full of potential, and able to achieve greatness—assumptions that ran through our heads before we ever started school. It never dawned on us to think any differently. 



The importance of setting goals. In our parents’ bid to engender a more stable financial situation, they joined Amway during the days of its explosive growth in the United States. We were hauled from seminar to seminar listening to successful people teach Amway distributors how to dream big, set goals, and move ahead in the business. The first family goal that my parents set was a trip to Disney World in Orlando.  To clearly define this goal, they affixed a picture of Mickey Mouse on the refrigerator and my parents worked diligently to earn that dreamy vacation. This taught us that things don’t just happen, you have to know what you want and work hard for them. 



The value of learning.  Whether it was the math kit Mom ordered in the mail, the microscope we received on our birthday, or the books she read to us that highlighted the value of determination, we were imbued with a burning desire to learn about the world around us. Mom cultivated this curiosity, a fire that could not be quenched regardless of age.  As a result, we never knew we were supposed to dislike school—au contraire! We loved school. We “played school” even when we were home on summer break. Learning was achieving, and achieving was fun. We have embarked upon a lifetime of learning that has propelled us from one challenge to the next. It’s what keeps us moving forward and motivates us to reach for new summits.

Aptitude is important, but there are a lot of smart people in the world. That is not what sets one child apart from another. Neither does attending the right university.

For us, the key was having a can-do attitude, setting goals and working hard to achieve them. We had a deep curiosity and drive to learn and this ensured we would survive the bumps in the road, to include life-altering challenges such as teenage pregnancy, autoimmune disease, rejection by potential employers, and being sent to multiple war zones.

Your future is not defined by your current circumstances, but by how you respond to them. That’s what you should remind your children every day.  And don’t worry, they are listening.

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We live in an instant society where we want—what we want—now. We have a decreasing amount of patience to build our expertise or work towards our objectives. Modern American culture gives us the impression that unless we come out of the womb as savants, we are not superstars. The idea of having to work hard for something is not idealized. We see the overnight success stories and think that unless we are naturals, we shouldn’t even try.

But real life is different. Here are the counterintuitive paths to success. It’s not the map that you expect, but when you arrive at your destiny, you will be blown away by the fruit of your labor, dreams, hard work, and faith.

Do it the hard way.  This is completely counterintuitive to human beings who are hard-wired to avoid pain and suffering and find the path of least resistance.

Our preference is to find the most efficient means to achieve our objectives. But the truth is, the harder it is to acquire something or achieve a goal, the more you learn in the process and the more satisfying it is. The process of self-discovery and self-actualization can’t be short-circuited; it requires that you push yourself to the very edge. I have found no other substitute for figuring out what you’re really made of and what you are supposed to be doing in this world.

Instead of studying a more digestible major, I chose a topic that was completely outside of anything I knew: the Middle East. Although I could have remained in my cushy dorm room in West Palm Beach to obtain my degree, I traveled abroad to spend a semester of my junior year in crazy Cairo. I jumped at every opportunity to get abroad: Egypt, Israel, Russia, Ukraine, Kuwait. After graduation, I didn’t stay in my hometown in Florida; I wandered into the wilds of Washington, D.C., completely intimidated and over my head.  It was all part of the process I needed to become wise about the world and knowledgeable about politics and foreign affairs. These decisions were what eventually got me into a masters program and a job at the CIA.

Be more than a picture of success. In today’s fast paced, social media-driven world, success is judged by your self-marketing skills, your ability to post the most glossy and enviable pictures, tweets, and posts. Real success isn’t necessary—You just need to look the part. I call that the Kim Kardashian Effect. Too many people subconsciously reason that as long as you have the appearance of success, you don’t have to be substantive or knowledgeable beyond knowing how to take really good selfies. While this strategy has worked for some, by and large it is not the stepping stone to the life you desire. Imagine how much of a stand-out you can be if you become an expert in your field, learn to do something really well and then marry that with solid self-promotion skills which are required by employers today.

It took me a long time to find an agent and a publisher that believed in me—that saw more value in the fact that I had been undercover in the CIA than having a huge social media following. When many in the world were promoting themselves online, CIA officers would often Google themselves to be sure nothing came up. While it has taken me longer to prove my substantive expertise, I believe that my unconventional career will take me further than just being able to smile pretty for the camera. Whether we like it or not, self-promotion is important in today’s world, but we’ve got to have something of substance behind the image for us to have meaningful impact. 

Work your way up from the bottom. This principal used to be a given, but there is a growing expectation that one should be able to graduate from college and slip right into that dream job. While it is possible, and I have seen it happen for some people, it has never worked that way for me. I have always had to start at the beginning work my way up. The really good thing about starting out on the ground floor is that you learn the ropes, the insides and the outsides of the career path. You learn things that “privileged” people don’t have a clue about. And later on, that knowledge will enable you to excel. When you start out at the bottom, you get the goods on what works and what doesn’t. And that is valuable intelligence!

My first job was working as an administrative assistant at a humanitarian organization. I was paid a pittance—barely enough to live on in. But boy did I learn. And I had no idea that all of this would prepare me for a project 20 years later which would require me to have substantive knowledge of humanitarian and refugee work. The knowledge I had gained in that organization was priceless: I was part of a team that helped find a new home for 149 Iraqi Christians, persecuted and displaced by ISIS. For fascinating insights on the evacuation of this group on December 18, 2015, please see my homepage for ABC’s 20/20 video special on this amazing event.

I would love to hear about your counterintuitive paths to a full, successful and truly meaningful life. Post a comment here or send me a message via my website.

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A scene from Mission Impossible, Paramount Pictures

I get asked all kinds of questions regarding my (former) life in the CIA. Because the cloak of secrecy hides our activities from the general public, there are numerous misconceptions about the life of an intelligence officer. Here are some of my favorites.

We get trained in the martial arts and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

On my own I’ve taken Karate and kickboxing, but these activities have served as a stress release, not operational components of my job. What we do is more of a mental game than a physical one. Aside from special operations officers, there’s no reason for the rest of us to do anything that requires running, jumping, or roundhouse kicks. Regardless, I’d like to let this misconception live on. It’s way to cool to squash.

We all speak multiple languages. A few of my friends and colleagues were amazing language learners. (One colleague knew six languages, but he was a freak of nature.) Most officers didn’t have a second language. I only have basic proficiency in Arabic despite years of study. Was it helpful on the job? Immensely. I drew upon that knowledge every day. Don’t be jealous though. My Arabic is good enough to carry on an extensive conversation with a 5-year-old. At least when I spoke Arabic with intelligence counterparts, agents, or business partners, it indicated, “I know I’m not awesome, but I care enough to try!” Thankfully, Arabs are gracious and appreciate the effort.

We can’t tell our families where we are or what we’re doing. My closest family members knew where my husband and I were serving. They didn’t know about our short-term travels (and related operations) but they knew about each and every posting. They sent us care packages, books to read, and cards from home. I’m sure our travels made them nervous as we spent most of our careers in difficult and dangerous places, but they provided critical emotional and spiritual support for which I was extremely grateful.

Not every officer felt comfortable letting their parents in on the secret. Even though the CIA said we could tell our families the basics of what we were doing, we had to determine whether they could handle this knowledge. Would it be too big of a burden knowing that their child was working undercover for the CIA? Would it freak them out? Would they be able to keep the secret? Or would they want to shout it out from the mountaintops?

I had a colleague who served with me in Baghdad whose parents thought she was working on a master’s degree in Kansas. They had no idea that she was in the middle of the Green Zone managing the flow of top secret information into and out of our CIA station. Like Dorothy, my friend was not in Kansas and was living in a weird version of the Emerald City. But she was dealing with terrorists and rockets, not flying monkeys. I wonder if she ever revealed afterwards to her parents she worked for the world’s pre-eminent intelligence agency and was not, in fact, a student teacher and a university researcher. (This was not the cover the agency gave her, just the cover she concocted for use with family and friends.)

Operational acts require the use of fancy dresses, jewels, martinis and fast cars.

Party dresses. Sure, I might have donned a few nice dresses in my career for diplomatic parties and social soirees, but most of the time I was wearing “normal” clothes. It was less 007 and either business suits or war zone attire.

Fast cars. When not in the office we spent time with colorful characters that in real life, we’d never engage. But these people had the secrets we needed, so we had to become good friends with rather unsavory people. It’s not particularly fun, but that’s the job…cozying up to people with access to the intelligence we needed. Admittedly, it’s hard to impress potential sources when they have a Mercedes and you have a Toyota. This is where it’s at friend, come and work for me!

Berenice Marlohe and Daniel Craig star in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions’ action adventure SKYFALL.

Martinis. In one part of the world, my hubby and I were known as having the best liquor cabinet in the whole city. I love good wine and my hubby likes a good martini (shaken with a twist), but we’re not party animals (far from it). Our jobs required being socially engaged and this was the kind of thing that drew people in. When we finished that tour, our friends scrambled to get their hands on the stash. I was shocked when even empty bottles were anxiously vied for. After selling a couple bottles of wine, our Lebanese friend walked into the dining room, laid eyes on the 25 bottles of various spirits on the table and said, “I’ll take ‘em all!” (He didn’t know what they were, but he didn’t care. He even bought the peach schnapps!) He became the coolest guy around when he boasted to his buddies, “I bought their whole liquor supply!” So there were martinis, but they weren’t being sipped in Monaco while hanging out with high rollers, plotting our next operational move on the super yacht.

Life is immensely exciting when you work for the CIA. This is true, but probably not in the ways that you imagine. We do travel the world. We meet a lot of interesting people and do a lot of cool things like recruit and handle secret sources. But we spend far less time carrying out operations and far more time planning them. We spend hours reading intelligence reports and coordinating on mountains of cables. The amount of reading and writing is astounding and would certainly blow your mind. If you think that reading is sexy then yassssss, intelligence officers are a ridiculously sexy bunch.

As I sit by the pool this weekend, drinking my mezcal margarita and watching the sunset fall over the river, I remember all those magical times in the desert when I couldn’t leave my desk until midnight, trying to push one more intelligence report out the door. I appreciate that career, but I can’t say that I miss it anymore. Glamour wasn’t a big part of my existence, but long days and nights and perpetual exhaustion sure was.

 

This article was reviewed by the CIA’s Publication Review Board (PRB).

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Congratulations, Ms. Haspel, on your confirmation as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Just like past directors, you have an incredible mission—to lead one of the world’s pre-eminent intelligence agencies. I would really love for you to succeed in this endeavor. I have penned this letter in the hope you will look at the agency anew—and have the courage to address problems that have plagued the CIA for decades.

I was honored to have served my country for ten years in the CIA also focused on the counterterrorism mission. Unfortunately, I believe that when the CIA succeeds, it succeeds “in spite of itself.” Given the many challenges the CIA currently faces at home and abroad, here are a few things you may wish to consider as you determine your priorities as director:

Change management focus. CIA directors tend to “manage up.” They are focused on maintaining good working relationships with the White House, DNI, and oversight committees. Obviously, that is important. But what would really change the game is for the CIA is to have a director with an employee focus.
Don’t wall yourself off from the workforce. If you want to know what’s happening in the agency, don’t ask your leadership team. Bring in new employees, mid-level staff, and operators at different ranks returning from the field. Give them a safe space to discuss how administrative issues and operations are really going. Actively seek insights on morale. Management will tell you what you want to hear and you’ll think that’s the whole story; it rarely is.
Look creatively at the CIA’s hiring practices. Develop strategic initiatives to identify and hire people with significant cultural expertise, language skills, and overseas experience. In order to be the best, you’ve got to hire the best (and then you’ve got to retain them). The CIA remains disadvantaged by a lack of diversity and it will take a focused and sustained effort to move us where we need to be–a more diverse and better-prepared workforce.
Develop better platforms to get closer to our targets and satisfy our collection requirements. The current models are outdated and the bureaucracy is so bloated that it’s hard to change direction, be creative, and think outside the box. Your leadership is critical because moving the Titanic requires not only operational changes but significant hiring and administrative changes and careful coordination with other intelligence agencies. But if ever we need to be creative in government, it is in the intelligence sector.
Institute a meaningful leadership training program for Chiefs-of-Station. Make your expectations clear: if you are in charge, you are to be a real leader. Expect COS’s to lead by example and mentor others. Please ensure they don’t see these assignments as a chance to be “king of the hill,” finally in charge and accountable to no one.

I withered under the incredibly poor leadership of one manager after another. Not one COS sat me down to find out what my expertise was or what I brought to the table. Not one manager abroad—in my multiple overseas assignments–endeavored to figure out what I brought to the table in order to harness it more strategically. The COS’s I served rarely understood their field staff, assuming we were all the same.

The hostile work environments they created pushed out numerous employees who were willing to risk their lives for their country, but could not take repeated abuse at the hands of their superiors. (One was placed in charge of a war zone after 9/11. Stories about him are have rippled through the staff for decades—He berated officers. He cursed at staff. He threw things. His behavior indicated that he was emotionally unhinged and mentally unstable. What exactly did he bring to the table that made it worth having him there? None of the hundreds/thousands of people who worked for him could figure it out. Unfortunately, this management style was not an aberration.)

If a Chief-of-Station alienates his employees, it’s highly likely he or she has alienated other U.S. agencies and foreign partners. It’s like hiring an ambassador that doesn’t have any relational skills. Continually sending these guys out to manage people and relationships seems to have done more damage than good.

Implement better training programs to build knowledge and hone the skills of mid-level employees. There is a significant gap between tradecraft training in the beginning of our careers and leadership training at senior levels. I recognize that this is difficult to implement because of the press of business. There are only so many hours in the day, and I’m the first to say how over-worked the CIA’s workforce is—especially in the field. But a little bit of training goes a long way. It’s worth the investment.

I wish you the best, knowing the incredibly challenging road that you face. Contrary to the current media focus, your biggest challenge isn’t the political chaos in Washington, D.C. If you want to improve the CIA, you’ve got to focus on your best and most important resource–the people who work for you. And that’s a topic rarely discussed—in or out of the CIA. America deserves better and you have the rare opportunity bring the CIA out of the management practices of the 1950’s and into 2018.

 

*** This article has been reviewed and approved for publication by the CIA’s Publication Review Board.

The post Disrupt the CIA! An Open Letter to Ms. Gina Haspel, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency appeared first on Michele Rigby Assad.

You’ve done it. You’ve survived college: you mastered new exam formats, obtained all necessary credits and walked the plank in graduation gown and mortarboard.

 

Now what?

 

What lies on the other side of that graduation can be shocking. Some lucky souls slide into their planned careers without complication. I was not one of those. There was no job waiting for me on the other side. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. I was about as clueless as a college graduate can be.

 

I had slammed face-first into a wall of uncertainty. Many of you know how it feels: You can’t find a job and if you do, it’s not in your preferred field and might not require a college degree. But you have to pay the bills, so you take what’s available. Good for you. But beware of the trap of settling in to something that you don’t want long-term. Don’t let the passage of time and the monotony of the day-to-day rob you of your career goals.

 

Here’s the secret no one told you: The terrible twenties are a rite of passage that you must survive in order to thrive. There’s nothing wrong with you. If you are in a kind of no-man’s land not knowing where to turn, welcome to the club!

 

I eventually made it to the other side, and quite a shock to me—I ended up becoming an undercover intelligence officer in the CIA. (I often joke, “I couldn’t get a job until I got hired by the CIA!”) It all worked out in the end, but I would have never gotten that job without the long, uphill struggle that eventually pushed me into my place of purpose.

 

Here’s a Guide for Surviving Your Terrible Twenties:

 

Explore your options. Ask a lot of questions.

 

After graduation, my “holding job” was an administrative assistant position at a humanitarian agency in Washington, DC. Faxing, filing, and taking phone calls was not exactly my dream job, but it paid the bills. Meanwhile, it was a career I thought I might be interested in. I pestered my colleagues with a thousand questions: Do you like your job? What did you study? Why did you choose this job? How did you get this position? What’s the best part of your job? What’s the worst? Nobody rejected my quest for career insights. People love to talk about themselves and their experience and they want to help others find their way.

 

It turns out, the grant writing and administrative side of humanitarian work wasn’t my thing. However, what I learned about relief and development work was priceless. The time that I spent there was not useless or wasted time. The insights I gained while faxing and filing would be integral to a project my husband and I were involved with twenty years later to help Iraqis displaced by ISIS.

 

Build your skills. Choose a topic that you love or an area of knowledge that fascinates you. Find a way to learn more.

 

While I was clueless about my future, I had this strong intuitive pull to study the Middle East. Therefore, I decided to study Arabic. I had been exposed to the Arabic language in my study abroad program in Cairo, but my knowledge was still quite limited. I bought an Arabic workbook and cassette tapes and started studying the language on my own. Then I discovered the most well-priced language courses in the DC area were offered by the USDA—The U.S. Department of Agriculture. (It sounds weird but it’s true! The USDA offers dozens of language courses at incredible rates.) I didn’t have much money, but I could afford to take these classes at night after work, so I did this for about a year. These small efforts probably don’t sound like much, but they were what I could do in that moment when I didn’t have any other direction. Baby steps are powerful—do not underestimate them!

 

Choose a bold move and go for it. (What’s the worst that could happen? Nothing!)

 

Now, as you proceed, mix up the baby steps with bold moves. My bold move was applying to Georgetown University’s Arab Studies graduate program. I doubted I was smart enough for an Ivy League school like this, but I applied anyway. I didn’t have the academic credentials they typically sought, but all the baby steps I had taken must have been compelling to program administrators who accepted me into the two-year program. My “baby-steps strategy” worked. My resume was full of indicators that I was determined to live an adventurous life and had the interest and constitution to get off the beaten path: mission trips to numerous foreign countries, a study abroad program in Cairo and my efforts to continue learning Arabic.

 

Get ahold of positive materials (books, podcasts, articles) and feed your soul.

 

Limit unfocused social media intake while feeding your mind and spirit with uplifting messages of hope and positivity. This is not a step you can afford to skip. Surround yourself with people who share the same goals. Hang out with people who will lift you up. Trust me when I say that you are going to need this support to survive post-graduation depression that threatens to take hold in the face of challenges and uncertainty.

 

Social media is not your friend in these moments. The images you see on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter foster the myth that success is easy, fast, and made possible by the wonders of great branding and modern marketing tools. “Instagram success,” the well-packaged portfolio of curated images, is not real success. Any hints of the time and effort involved in building your expertise and honing your craft are rarely captured by the camera. Therefore, we think that if there’s struggle involved in moving ourselves forward, there must be something wrong with us. Don’t be fooled by “manufactured success” but instead focus on developing a real, world-changing kind of knowledge base.

 

Success is the accumulation of singular, small steps that imperceptibly take you in the direction of your dreams. And at the right time, your bold moves either set you on the right course and/or launch you into the stratosphere. I am proof that the people who may be slow getting started are not doomed to failure—We just need a little extra time to percolate, to prepare ourselves for the crazy ride.

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053 Michele Rigby Assad on my secret life as a spy

 

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