LONG BRIEFING - - PROFESSIONAL MOVEMENT AND MANAGEMENT IN THE 70'S

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00357R000800180011-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 24, 2001
• Sequence Number: 11
• Content Type: BRIEF

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LONG BRIEFING -- PROFESSIONAL MOVEMENT AND MANAGEMENT IN THE 70's
I. Upper Movement -- A Key to Personal Management Concerns
1. Charts and Flash Messages are largely self-explanatory. Specific
comments follow below.
2. Chart la: In the last 15 years, organizational on-duty strength
in grade structure has changed in form from a pyramid to a block with a
cap on it. Flow-through from GS-11 through GS-13 is vertical and largely
so into GS 14. (Data: GS employees are used in this chart and succeeding
ones rather than "professional" employees only, because of unavailable
data in past years for the latter. However, in FY 1970, 97% of all GS
personnel in grades GS-12 and above were "professionals.")
3. Chart lb: This comparison in percentage terms shows an appre-
ciable increase in all grades GS-12 and above during the last 5 years,
with the largest percent of increase occurring in the Supergrades.
4. Chart ld: This chart zeros in on senior grades as a category and
shows a greater rate of growth in this group during the last five and ten
year periods as contrasted to the rate of growth in overall on-duty strength
in the same periods. The flash message says this phenomenom cannot be
expected to continue.
5. Table 2a and Chart 2b: The Table is a story of significant change.
Two points of significance appear:
a. Much of the increased level of projected personnel losses
(predicted retirements and estimated other separations) in both the
mid-officer and senior officer categories will occur between the past
five and the next five years;
b. The increase in level of losses in these grade groups will
be sustained in the last half of the decade, according to our predic-
tions of future retirements, but losses will not significantly acceler-
ate in the second half over the first half of the decade. As noted
in the flash message and in Chart lb, the aggregative effects of losses
in the next decade will be of sufficient magnitude to turn over three-
fourths of present senior officers and all of the mid-officers (attri-
butab in their ranks plus movement upward). Note:
only in the GS-12 and GS-l3 group are expected to
remai a ire decade. Since three-fourths of the present
senior officers GS-14 and above are expected to O4,T1Wi e
next 10 years, a minimum of 600 o icers must play through from ranks
below those currently in the GS-12 and GS -1 rades plau as many more
as will be required to offset all of the remaining in &TeAand GS-13 group who will not be promoted. sumes no lateral in-
hiring at GS-12 or above level.)
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6. Table 3c: While it would be incorrect to assume there will be no
future change in the number of GS-12 and above jobs, it is logical to
speculate that the number is apt to decline rather than increase, barring
a major change in mission or functional emphasis. For planning purposes,
it is undesirable to impute arbitrary mathematical values to possible
levels of change (unless so labeled). Thus, this chart reflects the
planning assumption that present manpower levels will hold and promotional
opportunities will correspond to vacancies. In comparing the actual
annual promotion rates for the Agency during the past five years with pre-
dicted annual rates for the next ten years, we foresee no significant
change developing in the next decade.
7. Chart 1+a: In judging problems of succession, in relation to
problems of leadership and retention of professional continuity at all
levels, it should be remembered that the dimension of these problems
within an organization is not only a function of numbers but a question
of quality as well. And in reflecting upon quality, it should be remem-
bered that identification of able people is only the beginning step of a
developmental program. In the latter respects, this chart shows that many
of our key personnel were occupants of the senior jobs since the early
build-up period of the Agency. Even though. the higher grades have expan-
ded over the years, many officials have never relinquished the more respon-
sible positions. From a developmental standpoint, it can be assumed their
presence has preempted opportunities for many others in comparable or lower
grades to grow through first-hand exposure to higher experiences and respon-
sibilities.
II. Possible Problems or Conditions Ahead (Chart 5a)
1. Increased rate of movement in upper ranks during 1971-80 in some
parts of the Agency may be enough to create replacement problems; yet not
enough to permit sufficient upward movement and challenge in others.
a. Expected future movement in the middle and senior grade groups
is at the heart of management's concern how to ensure enough movement
upward and maintain a challenging service while avoiding serious dis-
ruptions in leadership and professional experience.
b. The expected level of increased future losses within the Agency
as a whole, as foreseen at this point in time, should not constitute
any kind of a crisis problem in succession or open up a wave of oppor-
tunities for upward movement similar to the Agency's situation in the
early years of its history. Neither is the future level of increased
losses so small that we can safely assume daily management will solve
all future problems. At this juncture, it is logical to suppose we
cannot judge, or afford to ignore, the varying impact of future losses
in the various Career Services of the Agency without taking a systematic
look throughout the Agency. Secondly, we should assess the resultant
changes if any that should be made in Agency policies or facilities to
meet the concrete needs divulged in such an inquiry. (Further personnel
retrenchments or restrictions can only intensify prospective personal
and management concerns with opportunities for personal development.)
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2. Static or Dedlining_Manpower Levels.
a. The Washington Post reported on 20 August 1970 that the Budget
people advised the President of a possible $10 billion deficit in
FY 1971 and $15-$25 billion in FY 1972. The Agency is now undergoing
a review how to absorb a proposed major cut in expenditures.
b. Substantial reudctions of dollars in FY 1971 ( and future
fiscal years) may well involve further personnel reductions.
c. Reduced Agency manpower levels will produce different effects
within the various Career Services.
d. Possible consequences in Agency from reduced manpower levels:
(1) Desirable effects can be achieved by utilization of
personnel resources to meet priority Agency needs.
(2) Also, probable tightening will pose new dislocations and
surplusing of personnel. Employee uncertainties may cause further
personal apprehensions and anxieties.
3. Increased Constraints, Controls and Impersonalization.
a. We recall with nostalgia the early days. There are many
reasons. They include not only our commitment to the Agency's mission
but also to freedom of movement; relatively unrestricted opportunities
for access to senior officials; shared and decentralized decision-
making; fluid and changing organizational alignments; limited written
rules, checks or controls; and ample resources to pursue new endeavors.
b. The vitality and responsiveness of the Agency's employees, as
experienced in the past, are its ultimate strengths. (Agency is not
a production shop requiring an optimum application of human resources
to materials in maximizing output.)
(1) Even in the context of Government service, our emphasis
must be the application of personal skills and knowledge to impon-
derables and uncertainties.
(2) While we strive to define our criteria, follow preferred
practices, and maintain an intellectual discipline, much of our
professionalism is within us, not in rulebooks or standard opera-
ting procedures (characteristic of some other Government activi-
ties).
c. We have witnessed, however, maturation and its consequences
in many ways since the early years.
(1) Presumably, most formalized rules were developed to
correct observable problems, to repeat lessons learned, or to meet
external requirements.
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(2) But many of the cumulative effects of these individual
rules have been bureaucratic constraints with deleterious effects;
e.g., tendencies toward not enough decisions to go around; em-
phases on immediate transactions or crises, to the detriment of
organizational purposes; preserving existing activities at the
expense of new requirements; growing concentration of decision-
making at the top; increased layering of the super structure; and
proliferation of administrative rules and regulations dictating
multiple involvements and time lags in the solution of single
matters (e.g., the inordinate time required to invoke a new rule).
(3) Ironically, in bureaucratic society a premium is placed
upon the Initiative and capability of an individual to beat the
written rules while faithfully observing the unwritten rules of
an organizational propriety.
d. There is a dichotomy between the need for existing rules and
controls (carefully arrived at and subject to change) and individual
desires for freedom of action and responsibility.
(1) Pieces of available evidence indicate that employee con-
cerns about personal initiative, challenge, self-respect and recog-
nition are the fundamental problems of personnel management --
not more services, overseas benefits or even money.
(a) Attrition II -- 70% of professional's termina-
tions (mostly under 30, under GS-12, under 5 years service)
were job or job related. Job reasons were not problems of
supervision or working conditions, but lack of future chal-
lenge and discrepancy between personal qualifications and
job requirements (which were often overstated).
(b) Other studies show comparable results: DDI Study
of Terminations, Federal Government Survey of Interns and
Agency Attitundinal Surveys.
(2) Perhaps as conclusive as survey findings are our own ob-
jectives of growing organizational rigidities and attempts to
curb personal or career dissatisfactions.
(a) Young people given routine tasks and subject to
several reviews.
(b) Increasing managerial concern about young people
and trying to make their lot more palatable.
(c) Agency attempts to ease problems of upper congestion
or blockage, e.g., retirement at 60.
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e. We can foresee more chances of impersonalization accompanying
increased formalized controls during next five years unless we can pro-
vide able young and mid-officers with more recognition, more partici-
pation in decision-making and better chances for upward movement (when-
ever and wherever it will be limited within individual Career Services
in the future).
4. Insufficient Personal Development to Meet Agency Needs and Provide
Personal Challenge.
a. Agency line personnel managers, including the Career Ser-
vices, have traditionally concentrated upon determination of assign-
ments; giving promotions to the best qualified; and managing employees
on a daily basis, within a world of work. Central personnel manage-
ment has concentrated on input of highly suitable people e&*Aq* t
of older employees (retirement).
b. Too little has been done in developing the many (the
staff personnel on board) through programs directly responsive to per-
sonal aspirations and capabilities -- again the vital concerns.
c. Management obviously sanctions, not opposes, personal develop-
ment. We know the organizational advantages of systematic personal
development, but we have developed employees haphazardly and there-
fore inadequately. Many reasons are apparent:
(1) During much of the Agency's history, personal development
was easily accomplished without systematic planning, trough
the existence of plentiful opportunities for progress by employees,
with potential, within the organization (horizontally and verti-
cally).
(2) Some of the career planning efforts in the past have
failed or partially failed and have left the impression that per-
sonal development means impractical, formal documents unrelated
to management needs.
(3) Many have felt that personal development was being suffi-
ciently realized through existing programs (senior schools,
CT Program, Mid-Career Program, etc.).
d. Personal development of professionals (with potential for
advancement to one or more grades) fundamentally means providing needed
experiences for new and more responsible duties in the future. This
approach benefits both the Agency and its employees. How much develop-
ment should be going on in any one year within each Career Service
(or a Directorate or the Agency) is a practical consideration, based
upon expected future opportunities for upward movement. Such deter-
minations should not be left to chance (as occurs when the best avail-
able employees are picked for assignments and training courses at the
time these situations arise).
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5. Mismatching of Employee Qualifications and Job Requirements.
a. The de facto relationship between job requirements and employee
skill levels is influential in obtaining either-.:employee satisfaction
or dissatisfaction and effective employee utilization or misutiliza-
tion. (Employee expectations about the future are closely tied to his
qualifications.)
b. An equilibrium in matching people and jobs is neither totally
possible or desirable in a mobile organization.
(1) For example, getting a job done may require: Using a
senior officer in lower graded position, perhaps the field, to
meet a priority need or assigning a task force of professionals
to a project without concern for their personal involvement in
duties that have to be performed; Assigning well-qualified college
graduates to professional positions, which may include some re-
curring menial tasks.
(2) Few officers, regardless of grade level, fully escape
routine activities, and no amount of job design can eliminate
them entirely.
c. While we must attend to whatever needs to be done the most
and shift employees as required to meet changing demands, we should be
alert to the causes of continuing imbalance between employee qualifica-
tions and job needs -- causes that can have an unhealthy effect in time
on employee satisfaction and effective utilization. For example:
(1) Escalating, inflating and misrepresenting duties and
specifying unnecessary or false personal skills or experience
requirements.
(2) Failing to keep T/0 and ceiling totals in balance.
Under conditions of rigid manpower controls, maintaining a
disproportionate number of professional positions versus clerical
jobs relative to the actual kind of work that has to be done.
(3) Misassigning professionals to clerical or technical
jobs (may be mislabeled as professional positions) or conversely
preempting predominantly professional jobs by misassigning cleri-
cals or technicals to them.
(4) Depending heavily upon highly selective recruitment and
evaluation methods and standards for obtainment of the best per-
sonnel available (under a career orientation approach) and then
assigning them to routine tasks which have little bearing on their
capabilities or are "busy work" jobs or tasks which no one else
wants to do.
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d. When employees can observe a continuing pattern of misrepre-
sented or mislabeled jobs, and misutilization of personal skill levels
or overhiring for the level of work to be done, a chronic condition of
employee dissatisfaction and wasted talents can occur. If the pattern
is continued or exacerbated and professional officers (especially the
young) see only restricted opportunities ahead for upward movement, the
problem can become critical in one or several places within an organi-
zation.
e. There is evidence the Agency has jobs called professional
that are more nearly sub-professional or technical in fact. There are
indications that more employees should be hired at the sub-professional
or technical levels to perform tasks at these skill levels. Providing
employees with job careers comparable to their interests and skill
levels and confining the number and use of highly selected individuals
for positions and career paths that are largely professional and chal-
lenging increase career satisfactions at all levels.
f. For the next several years, we face the possibility of further
impediments to proper matching of people and jobs because of contin-
ued limitations on opportunities for personal movement upward; man-
power restrictions and shifts in skill requirements (occasioned by
future technological and functional changes). These possibilities
warrant a detailed look to see where the problems are and what actions
should be taken, including changes in our hiring standards for cer-
tain jobs or groups of jobs (within or across Career Service lines).
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