Tradecraft > How to Support an Effective Transition
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Prepare Diligently: We don't yet know what the transition teams want from us but your principals must be prepared to give the transition team anything from an exhaustive briefing about the work your bureau/office/team does to a twenty second elevator pitch. Prepare your principals accordingly.
Make no Assumptions: Even if the principals you are preparing are foreign policy veterans, they may have zero experience in your area. Or zero interest. Make no assumptions that they will have any knowledge, experience, or interest in your portfolio. Prepare accordingly
Every Briefing Counts: You or your principal may have one shot, one opportunity to discuss and impress the transition team with what you think is most important. Even if you provide the team with binders of information, don't expect anybody to read it. You may get a five minute interview to make an impression. Make it count.
What is Your Bottom Line? The transition is an opportunity to put your portfolio forward. It is not an opportunity to complain, settle scores, or put one over on a rival bureau or agency.
What is Your Short Term Plan? Have a short term plan to carry on without senior guidance. If your plan is to do absolutely nothing without guidance then so be it, but make sure everybody knows that. If your plan is to stay the course until otherwise informed then make sure everybody knows. Expect confusion and plan accordingly.
Show Leadership: If you are a principal, then this is an opportunity for you to show leadership. Know what you need, prepare accordingly. If you don't feel prepared, that is your fault. Also, transition periods are naturally fraught times. Policies are changing. People may be nervous. Engage your staff openly about what you know and what you don't. Do not try to guard information or try to be the only person to know something. Do not engage in rumor mongering. Explain things as well as you can, hear people out, and act accordingly. Be a leader.
Don't forget your current boss: First and foremost, helping a transition is part of a future process and you remain fully on your current job. Your current boss, whether appointee or not, deserves your entire focus, as does your current department front office. Always remember that. This is especially important to remember when you are asked to provide information or advice to a transition team. You are being relied on for your expertise, but you should ensure you are not seen to complain about current policy or to opine about how something is falling through the cracks.
Follow the transition leaders: Each agency has a transition coordinator, a senior career officer in charge of managing the transition. They will be supported by many offices that will be doing work for the current team, but need to help the new one. This includes general services/office space, IT support, badging, etc. The agency coordinator will have the final say on guidance and protocols for engaging the transition teams, and they will be the connection to the support structure in your Department. So, if you have transition questions, go to the transition coordinator team first.
Be ready to be ready: Transition teams usually walk into a deluge of briefing materials and offers, but have a million other things going on besides expert briefings and recommendations. It's important to realize they are pulled between many things (winding down campaign obligations, other employment, moving to DC—sometimes temporarily, etc) and their focus may come and go. So, the best help you can provide is get yourself organized and ready to brief on a moment's notice. Best to think through what the top tier issues may be that you will be asked to engage in, and get ready to brief in writing or in person. Often the excellent briefing paper you did on a topic was buried with 800 others, so be flexible and reiterate. Also understand a team may want to ask follow up questions and focus on an angle you may not have considered. Be straightforward and analytic.
This is not a bidding cycle: You are here to help the transition, not transition yourself. There are scores of people angling for USG jobs from the campaign and beyond, and adding your own job search into the mix is distracting and unhelpful. Remember that the campaigns will already be full of people who have been between jobs, or eager to start something new in the USG. Their focus will be on them, or assembling a team for campaign and associated colleagues. The best thing you can do is be the best at your current job, and share your expertise.
New people come and go: Be ready to help people you may never see again, and welcome new people who suddenly appear. Transition teams are always in flux—some people are needed elsewhere before they end up at your Department, and some end up working at one office or Department during the transition only to get a full time appointment elsewhere—or none at all. There is a lot going on behind the scenes, and you are going to be most helpful at your most flexible. You may need to re-brief someone new on a team after a change, or get to know a whole new crew. Go with it, they are going through more churn than you are.
Hurry (but be careful): Transitions are fast and chaotic day-to-day. With holidays and weekends, there are precious few work days to get the transition work done, and remember the incoming folks still have day jobs and closing out the campaign. You will need to be at your most efficient to help. However, this can get into dangerous territory—do you know what clearances your requester has? Can you really send that memo to that email address? Check with your agency transition coordinator and legal office—they are already working on these issues and will be able to advise on short notice.
Be proud: No matter how messy, chaotic, or frustrating moments can be, you are at a recurring moment in history that is worth admiring. You are a career public servant helping an orderly transition of power that helps keep the country safe and prosperous.
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