Changing the Guard
Preparing the Intelligence and National Security Community for the Generation Z Officer
by
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The Generation Z population is roughly 10- to 25-years-old. They will be the predominant new hires to the Intelligence and National Security Community, to include within our government, private and academic organizations, for the next 15 years.
Generation Z is as diverse as any generation before them, but they share an incredible common history as the youth of the Covid-19 pandemic. While they will not all share the same ideas for how the Intelligence and National Security Community should evolve, they will share the knowledge that it can. The vast majority of Generation Z began the 2019/2020 school year in packed classrooms in traditional school buildings, and were advised by their school administrators, parents, and community leaders that this was how school life has been for generations, and how it would work for generations to come. A few months later, despite these assurances and decades-long historic precedence, with little warning and even less planning, Generation Z took part in what might be the greatest adolescent cultural and educational experiment of our time - virtual public schooling.
The implementation, successes, and failures of virtual schooling were as varied as our country, but one thing was universal. Generation Z saw that wholesale and rapid change to American institutions and decades-long practices is possible. Even within the Intelligence and National Security Community, renowned for its rigid standards and security practices, Generation Z saw presumed impossible work model changes during the pandemic’s height. In their most formative years, Generation Z observed their local and national governments operating at peak flexibility - an example of what is possible they are unlikely to forget as they join the national security community.
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About the Book
Janna Scott-Tarman’s career aspirations were forever changed after volunteering as an EMT on September 11, 2001. Now after spending twenty years in the US intelligence and national security community, Scott-Tarman is focusing on preparing that same community for its next generation of young officers, fresh off their own life-inspiring experiences as the youth of a global pandemic and transformative social movements.
In a comprehensive examination of the complex challenges that face the intelligence and national security community, Scott-Tarman relies on her professional experience as a seasoned member of this community to analyze how its leaders can attract the best and brightest of the next generation by being not only flexible in their mission, but also in the way they lead. While sharing personal stories that provide insight into the benefits of working within this community as well as the areas that need improvement, Scott-Tarman shines a light on how the community must transform and evolve to inspire future national security officers to accept and fulfill its important mission.
Changing the Guard offers a study of the intelligence and national security community while providing illuminating insight into how it can successfully recruit the next generation of officers.
About the Author
Janna Scott-Tarman has a Juris Doctorate from the George Washington University Law School and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. She additionally studied international law through an exchange program at Oxford University in England. She has served twenty years at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Janna has received multiple national and agency-level team awards for the protection of US critical infrastructure and the national defense supply chain, and she was the 2017 recipient of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance Intelligence Community Joan A. Dempsey Mentorship Award. Janna is married to Carl, a DC metro mechanic, and together they have a 16-year-old daughter.
author.changing.the.guard@gmail.com