WP: Negroponte to Apply Military's Joint-Duty Approach to Intel Agencies

Negroponte to Apply Military's Joint-Duty Approach to Intelligence Agencies
By Stephen Barr
Monday, June 19, 2006; Page D04

As part of an effort to break down barriers between intelligence agencies, employees will be required to serve tours of duty outside their home offices to qualify for promotion into the government's senior ranks.

A directive mandating "joint duty" assignments was recently issued by John D. Negroponte , the director of national intelligence. It is one of a series of steps taken this year by Negroponte to better integrate operations among the 16 federal agencies that make up the intelligence community.

"This is going to be essential to the transformation of the intelligence community," said Ronald P. Sanders , the top personnel adviser to Negroponte. "Almost by definition, a leader's abilities are improved when he or she has an enterprise-wide perspective."

The intelligence community, or IC, has always encouraged employees to move between agencies on temporary or rotational assignments, but the practice has not worked well because it lacked structure and uniformity, Sanders said. In particular, he said, the new program will try to address employee concerns that rotational tours put them at risk of being "out of sight, out of mind" when promotion opportunities arise in their home agency.

Negroponte's directive grew out of findings of congressional and presidential commissions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that called for a restructuring of the intelligence community....

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