Photo: CSIS
This transcript is from a CSIS event hosted on October 15, 2024. Watch the full video here.
Dr. Kathleen McInnis: Smart Women, Smart Power was founded in 2014 as a platform for amplifying women’s voices on national security and international affairs. Now, a decade later, Smart Women, Smart Power has transformed from a platform to a research and analysis powerhouse, exploring the many different ways that women make a critical difference to the organizations they work in and the problems that they solve. And we continue to amplify the voices of the world’s most powerful women.
I’m Dr. Kathleen McInnis, director of the Smart Women, Smart Power Program here at CSIS. We are delighted that you have joined us to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Smart Women, Smart Power.
I’m also thrilled to have the Honorable Dr. Kathleen Hicks, the deputy secretary of defense, here with us today, joined by Beverly Kirk. They’re both early supporters and leaders of this important initiative.
With that, happy birthday, Smart Women, Smart Power! (Music.)
Announcer: This is Smart Women, Smart Power, a podcast that features conversations with some of the world’s most powerful women.
Beverly Kirk: Hello, everyone. I’m Beverly Kirk. I’m director of Washington programs for the Newhouse School at Syracuse University here in D.C., and it is my pleasure to begin this conversation today with the deputy secretary of defense, the Honorable Kathleen Hicks. Thank you so much for being here.
The Honorable Kathleen H. Hicks: I am thrilled to be here, Bev. And I’m especially thrilled that it’s the 10-year anniversary of Smart Women, Smart Power, and you and I were here on that first launch day. And it’s amazing how this program has endured and everything that Kathleen and her team have done with it.
Ms. Kirk: It is a very exciting day indeed, especially with all the impact that Smart Women, Smart Power has had.
Now, I want to start with what we have traditionally done with Smart Women, Smart Power, and that’s talk about you – a little bit about your background. And before we dive into the topic of the day today, for those who may not know your career path, how did you end up in public service?
Hon. Hicks: Yeah. You know, I grew up in one of those families where we always talked about public policy, the news of the day at the dinner table, and you came with your game. You know, if you wanted to be part of the conversation, you had been looking at the news or reading weekly periodicals, the newspaper. So I really grew up with that sense of public policy and the value of service.
And that value of service was particularly reinforced because I grew up in a military family. My dad was in the Navy. I’m the youngest in a large family; I had a number of siblings who joined the service or went into public policy in other ways. My mother was – you know, volunteered her time significantly to family members of those in the Navy.
So that was definitely where I was headed off to when I finished college and went into grad school. It was in some form of public policy and public service. But even though it probably made a lot of sense, ultimately – since I grew up in a Navy family – that I’d end up at the Defense Department, it wasn’t exactly planned out that way. And even I grow a little surprised at how connected my current job is to everything about my childhood.
Ms. Kirk: But was being a leader at the Defense Department a goal along the way, or did that kind of happen organically?
Hon. Hicks: Yeah. It happened organically, and that’s what I think is hard to see in retrospect. I started at the Defense Department as a presidential management intern, which they now call presidential management fellow, when I was 23 years old, which is just yesterday.
Ms. Kirk: Exactly. (Laughter.)
Hon. Hicks: And I was so excited. It was definitely a job I wanted. The job description which came in the – literally came in the mail back in those days – wasn’t even email; through a catalog of different positions – just looked so exciting and interesting, and really drew on kind of that whiz-kid mythology of civil servants who are civilians and work really hard in support of servicemembers, and so I loved that about it. But I didn’t enter that way thinking in any way – how could you? – that you would end up, you know, near the apex of the Defense Department. But it certainly – it was certainly something that I loved doing, and going in and out of public service has been my entire career.
Ms. Kirk: And one last personal question: Do your kids think you have the coolest job ever? (Laughter.)
Hon. Hicks: You know, I don’t know that they do. I will tell you this story from my time at the Pentagon. My daughter, who – I had then worked in the Pentagon a long time – had come to work with me one day when she was young, and she said this is the most boring place ever, which, obviously – most boring place ever. And then she came to the office I had at the time, which was the last office I had before this one – so about 10 years ago – and the office had a bathroom, and that changed everything. So apparently I went from the most boring job ever to – in the most boring place ever to cool simply because I had a bathroom. So that’s apparently what it takes. (Laughter.)
Ms. Kirk: I can see where that would be impressive to a young person.
So we are marking, as we’ve talked about, the 10th anniversary of Smart Women, Smart Power, but we’re also marking a potential transition point for you as the Biden-Harris administration comes to an end. And you were there at the beginning on the transition team, and now you’re COO of the DOD. So I have to ask this: What did you think would be your top challenge when you took the job? And then what actually turned out to be your top challenge, if you’ve seen it yet? You still have a lot of time.
Hon. Hicks: Oh, boy. Yeah, thanks. Don’t wish me more challenges.
Ms. Kirk: (Laughs.)
Hon. Hicks: You know, I think the top challenge I expected and the top challenge I faced are the same, which is the relentless modernization and expansion of the People’s Liberation Army and the capabilities of the People’s Republic of China. Before I came into government, I knew that the PRC would be our pacing challenge. I knew the challenge set we faced. And I also knew the role that the deputy secretary of defense typically plays in the department to really help guide the development of capabilities, particularly connecting the secretary and the president’s vision – connecting that strategic vision through the budget, through the capabilities development process and other processes, the people side of the Pentagon into the capabilities we would need. And that has absolutely been my focus and consistent with what I expected.
I think if I had to point to something that was surprising, it was the fragility of the institution to really undertake that effort at the beginning. I think we’ve grown tremendously, but I think after 10 years of sequestration, you know, it’s my – I’m currently under the 12th continuing resolution just of my tenure, let alone what came before me. Challenges hiring, challenges to making sure that our civil servants were protected, all of that has led up to and counted toward the challenges of executing across the department. That, therefore, has been a major focus of mine over the last four years, I think we’ve really strengthened the institution substantially.
Ms. Kirk: And one of the challenges that you started working on was defense innovation right out of the gate, so I want to ask you about that because everyone knows it takes time to turn a(n) aircraft carrier, so in the Defense Department that analogy’s often given because it’s not really easy to be very flexible or agile. So talk about what innovation has meant to you and what you’ve been able to accomplish in these last four years in that area.
Hon. Hicks: Yeah. So, you know, innovation is really just about making sure you’re leveraging change to accelerate an outcome that you want. And that’s what we’ve been all about, looking for every way in which the department can deliver for the warfighter. That’s the outcome we’re interested in: more efficient use of taxpayer dollars to deliver for the warfighter. And I do think we’ve been able to deliver real outcomes here.
There is no silver bullet at the level that we’re talking about, the scale of the Defense Department. You’re talking about 3 million plus employees, a board of director(s) of 535. You’re talking about a global footprint. You’re talking about assets and evaluation of multiple layers of the nation’s largest companies. It’s kind of an unfathomable scale. And so change at that level is really about tailoring to what are the major problems that are getting in the way of delivery to the warfighter and making sure you have solutions targeted toward that. There’s no one thing that’s going to fix the challenges and barriers that we’re after. So that’s what I’ve been all about, trying to make sure I understand the problems and then focus on the problems to get to distinct solutions to solve that.
I think at the challenge level that we face, the scale of that challenge is suggestive of more fundamental reforms. And so I do think we need to be much more agile and flexible, but with this – and so I advocate for that wherever I can. But we also would be, you know, demonstrating malpractice if we didn’t attempt to execute the system that we have today to deliver outcomes, and so that’s where we’re tailoring all these solutions to try to overcome those barriers, whether they’re barriers of continuing resolutions, the way in which our budget is structured, or cultural barriers in the department itself.
Ms. Kirk: What would you assess has been the biggest challenge in terms of speeding up the agility and moving a bit faster than the Defense Department is known for? Is that any one thing that you can point to that is the barrier that needs to be taken down?
Hon. Hicks: I do think, first, I would say two things.
Outside of the department, it’s continuing resolutions. It’s the inability to get appropriations on time and the inability to have new starts. You can’t innovate and do things differently if you can’t start in the first place. And we’ve lost, you know, more than five years in the past decade-plus to continuing resolution(s). You can’t make that time up. So that’s the thing I would say outside the department.
Again, malpractice not to focus inside the department. And there I would say, generally speaking, the issue is culture, and making sure there’s a culture of accountability and reward – incentives and rewards for innovation, and then holding folks accountable for the standards that we set out. And that is a – is a different – it’s a normal way of doing business and it is a different culture than what the department has become used to.
Ms. Kirk: Are there successes you wish more people knew about?
Hon. Hicks: Absolutely. I think, you know, one area I would focus on in particular is what we’ve done on joint all-domain command and control, which is, obviously, a long acronym. But what I would say in general is we have been really looking at how do we make sure in the age we live in, in which you can pull up your phone and pick up a rideshare, you know, right off your phone; you can look and see your pathway to work through an app, a navigation app – small examples there; you can order online; how do you take that kind of compute capability and bring it to create decision advantage for that warfighter? So whether it’s the commander in chief trying to understand where all the tradeoffs are globally and how that creates decision advantage, all the way down to the tactical level where a commander on a battlefield or, you know, at sea or in the air – or, better yet, looking across all those domains in a joint sense – can really start to synchronize their capabilities, that’s what we’re trying to do in joint all-domain command and control.
And from 2021 to today, unbelievable progress that we’ve had. We have built the tech stack from data – it all starts with data transparency, so the data decrees. We have built the cloud compute capability with our joint warfighting cloud capability, contracts with all the major cloud compute companies. We have created a Chief Digital and AI Office with a chief digital AI officer, who has brought together five disparate organizations who have value to bring to this. And we have put in place a very systematic experimentation pathway, every 90 days, churning and burning to advance capability there. And we have achieved minimum viable capability. We did that at the end of 2023. We’re building on that in 2024. And I think there is much more progress to come.
Ms. Kirk: Let’s talk about a term that is being bandied about here in Washington these days, polycrises. When you started out four years ago, COVID was an enormous challenge, probably the top challenge at the time. And then fast forward, there have been all these other crises that have – that have happened, from Russia invading Ukraine, the current Middle East conflict, and China and Taiwan. So, and for those who don’t know, polycrises is basically multiple challenges at once that you have to deal with. So how do you stay focused and prepared for dealing with multiple major challenges, any one of which can – not to put too fine a point on it – blow up big at any time?
Hon. Hicks: Yeah. So in a 30 year career, national security polycrisis is the norm of the day. There’s never been a time where we’ve had the luxury in the United States really have just one crisis or urgent national security need to focus on. And today is no different, as you point out. I think having a North Star, making sure you have a strategy, and understanding what those most pressing, most dangerous, most likely contingencies are for which you need to be prepared is the way you do that. And be flexible and understand how you have to adjust to the reality.
If you have too rigid an approach, you’ll be brittle. You’ll break in the midst of what is – should be known as polycrises, day-in, day-out. If you create too flat a force, if you will, that’s not agile enough, but also doesn’t have the ability to culminate for the major challenges, like a PRC pacing challenge, you won’t be able to deal with those crises. So it’s about how you design your force. And then it’s about how you manage that force, day-in, day-out. Always a challenge, but not a new one.
Ms. Kirk: But what does it actually mean for the readiness and for the posture? Because it’s really hard to be focused, as I mentioned, on the Middle East, but also be keeping an eye on China and Taiwan at the – at the same time?
Hon. Hicks: Well, you have to make sure you build a force – I’m just going to speak to the Defense Department piece of this, because we’re just one tool in the tool kit. But you have to build, in the Defense Department, a force that has that agility, as I said, across multiple kinds of crises. You have to build it scaled sufficiently to manage multiple crises in multiple theaters. We talk about that as our force planning construct sometimes. And you have to be thinking ahead to the investments you have to make so that it paces against the challenges as they evolve. And it has to be resilient. It has to be resilient for things like cyber, or climate, or other challenges that arise.
All of that balancing is the heart of how we design forces. And it takes a lot of analysis and thinking to come up with force design that can meet all those various challenges. I have talked about that sometimes is the iron triangle of painful tradeoffs, trading off the readiness of today with the size of the force you need, with the investments you have to make for the future. And that, you know, dynamic, that geometry is almost always present as the core tension in building out a force. And the way you try to slip through the tension is thinking of asymmetries.
You think about allies and partners. You think about innovation and ways to break through what seems like a stagnant set of approaches that you can use. You look at opportunities and not just threats and how you advance them, and, of course, other tools of national power.
Ms. Kirk: And we’ll get to opportunities in a moment. I just want to ask one more follow-up, because while you’re doing all of this, you have to think about the health of the actual force and keeping troops – soldiers, airmen and sailors – healthy.
Hon. Hicks: Absolutely right. We spend about – a little more than 40 percent of the defense budget is really on the force itself. And we’ve had a major set of initiatives that the secretary calls taking care of our people. It’s a huge focus area for him, and then thus for me as the COO; so everything from paying compensation to making sure they have the equipment they need, the training they need, their family members are taken care of, everything from spouse employment opportunities, their ability to port licensure, for instance, from one state to another.
Childcare – we’ve increased investments in childcare offerings. We’ve put money into housing. We’ve gone after sexual assault, sexual harassment. We’ve hired a thousand, for instance, prevention-workforce members. And we have finally dropped sexual-assault statistics by about – for the first time in eight years. We’re going after suicide prevention. All of that takes a huge amount of focus. And it is worthwhile. It is all about returning value to what the taxpayers give to us in order to make sure we can put out the finest fighting force, but also keep faith with that force and their families.
Ms. Kirk: You did allude to major opportunities. What do you see that is an opportunity ahead of us against the backdrop of all the challenges?
Hon. Hicks: I think a big opportunity is actually on the talent side. I think the department has – first of all, we have had excellent retention over the time that I have been in, and certainly over the course of the Biden-Harris administration writ large. I give the secretary a huge amount of credit for those taking-care-of-people initiatives that I’ve just outlined as part of why there’s that value proposition that’s returning.
Recruitment, we’re in really good shape. We have to watch that. You know, young people today don’t have a connection to the military that a generation ago, let alone two generations ago, would have. So we have to work extra hard at making sure we keep our recruiting edge.
Civilian talent. When I go around the Defense Department, which, of course, means overseas, all across the country – you know, Hawaii, Alaska, West Coast, East Coast, and everywhere in between – we have amazing talent. I am always so humbled by people who get up every day, put mission first, and whether they’re in a lab, they’re in direct support of a warfighter, they’re doing logistics, they’re writing policy, they’re tremendously engaged.
But most people don’t know about us as an employer for civilians. And I think there’s a lot of opportunity to build on that message of – that’s so resonating, I think, for Gen Z and every generation, frankly, around mission and make sure we’re better known as an employer. And that’s where, I think, there’s a lot of opportunity.
We have a – we have hired a chief talent management officer. That’s something I have done. And I think we can build out from that central node to a talent-management policy.
Ms. Kirk: What do you think it’ll take to convince younger people that this is a career for them?
Hon. Hicks: I always say, in the Defense Department, it’s a show-me culture. You have to really lead from the front and you have to show people that they can do, for instance, really amazing work. Why would they know that? You know, why would they – I was out in Delmarva last week and I was speaking, among other things, to a civilian Navy engineer, young female, on lasers. She couldn’t have been more excited about talking about lasers.
You know, bringing those stories of individuals forward and all that they accomplish and showing them, showing people what you can do, and removing the barriers. There’s lots of barriers, of course, working in government. I know that more than anyone. I’ve spent more than 20 years in the Defense Department in one guise or another.
Ms. Kirk: The application process alone for civilians is –
Hon. Hicks: What was that?
Ms. Kirk: I said the application process alone for civilians –
Hon. Hicks: Yes. Exactly, exactly. Everything from the application process, the time to hire, the security-clearance process. We’re working on all of those. And we have to if we’re going to get the kind of talent that we need.
Ms. Kirk: One other question on challenges. I’m sure there are challenges that you see every day that the rest of us don’t see. They don’t get reported in the news. What are some that need attention that aren’t really being talked about?
Hon. Hicks: I do think for – you know, for us, the pacing challenge of the PRC is really hard to demonstrate because, you know, people can turn on the news and they see, of course, the war in Ukraine, which is a huge focus for us. They see the challenges in the Middle East – huge focus for us. And people can see why those national-security issues are forward in our minds. But I think the PRC challenge is much harder for folks to see. So that’s one.
I think, kind of swinging the other direction, I might point to the climate crisis, where we see every day challenges from drought or wildfires or flooding or sea-level rise, air quality. All of that affects our ability just to train. It affects our grid resiliency. You know, is the power on so that our folks can do their work day to day? Can you be on the range that you expect it to be on? Can allies and partners join you there? Those are the – and the costs, and the costs of trying to make sure we stay climate-resilient, which are significant, in the billions.
So I think that’s a challenge that I wish more people understood as a national-security threat. It’s been a bipartisan focus area since the early 2000s. It’s not controversial for us in the national-security community to talk about climate change as a crisis, and the costs are seen every day. So that’s one I wish people would pay more attention to.
Ms. Kirk: Well, we have a question from the audience, following up on the culture of DOD. What are the cultural challenges currently facing DOD? And how have they changed over the course of this administration?
Hon. Hicks: Yeah, I think one of the big challenges we see is around sharing information and being afraid to share information because – you know, we call this sometimes embrace the red, because you’re worried it’s going to show you or your organization in a bad light; so the data decrees I mentioned before, which require organizations to make sure that they’re sharing relevant data that we need in order to measure our outcomes. So are we ready? You know, is food security in the right place? You know, how much capability have we grown in this or that area?
Those are the kinds of sharing of information that are – it’s really hard down at the granular level to get organizations to focus on sharing, in part because they’re worried that if they share it and the information is bad that the incentives go against them. So aligning the incentives, showing folks that, you know, you can show the red, embrace the red, and we’re going to work on that together and we’re going to figure out how to make it better, that’s that show-me culture. I think that’s an area where we’ve made a lot of progress.
I think on incentives, which is the core always of culture change, we’ve also tried to show that through big muscle movements in terms of budget. You know, what doesn’t – you know, in the
Defense Department, nothing sings more than budget. So a good example is the Marine Corps had Force Design 2030 when we came in in 2021. And working with the Marine Corps is exactly the right kind of shift we needed for what we call the stand-in force, which the Marines are a significant part of. And working with the Marine Corps, we saw opportunities to pull forward by three years from Force Design 2030 to 2027 some of the changes they were trying to make. So we put that shift in money there.
And everyone sees that. All other services see when that money shifts. And you can see the effects, the ripple effects of that kind of show-me approach, where we’ve now seen other services come forward. You have the Army now talking about transformation – transforming in contact, transformation in contact. We also have had – I mentioned CJADC2 before. We have a couple combatant commanders who routinely demonstrate use of joint command all-domain command and control. And that is driving others to sort of peer over and say, hey, I want to use some of that as well. Even in the hurricane relief where we’ve been doing support, we’ve been bringing to bear that data approach and using it even in domestic crises to try to understand the environment better. So I think you see that every day in the Defense Department.
Ms. Kirk: Another question from the audience, circling back to the Chief Digital and AI Office. What were the department’s biggest learnings from building out that office? And what are you most proud of? And what would you do differently? And what changes do you think will endure?
Hon. Hicks: Wow, that’s a lot. (Laughs.)
Ms. Kirk: I was going to say, that’s, like, four questions in one.
Hon. Hicks: Sure. Yeah, so let me back up and say when we built that office we first went out and tried to understand what was the best practice in the commercial sector. And that was the best practice, was to build that data stack together all the way from the chief data officer, to our AI work, and some of the other application approaches we were undertaking. So very comfortable with the approach we took. And in, whatever this is now, three years since standing up – I think we set it up in ’22, excuse me. It may only be two years. Two to three years, yeah, I mean, amazing, amazing progress.
If you’re going to take five organizations and put them in one organization, it’s going to take a little time and some growing pains. And there’s no doubt about that. But the team is just doing marvelous work. As I said, we have that minimum viable capability. The data decrees are moving along quite strongly. We have something like a 78 percent growth, I want to say, in that inventory of data feeds that we have, and our program Advana is the easiest way to see that, just in the last several years. So no doubt about them meeting their benchmarks. And they’re building out their own culture. That’ll take a little time, not unexpectedly, coming from so many different organizations. But very impressed with the work they’ve been doing.
Ms. Kirk: And one more question that’s following up on a point mentioned here, what are – what is the most valuable contribution allies have made to support the U.S. during your tenure? And what is the key challenge of working with European allies specifically?
Hon. Hicks: Well, I mean, let’s just stay in Europe for the – I’m not going to evaluate one allied contribution versus another. We have it as a core element of our strategy, the National Defense Strategy, to make sure that we’re doing all that we can for the – to make use of the asymmetric advantage that we all have through our alliance network. We are not, you know, simply looking at partners who are here by circumstance, like some of our adversaries are – strange bedfellows, if you will. We are a values aligned network with common interests. And that is very powerful.
And so if you look at what’s happened around Ukraine, our European allies and allies throughout – and partners throughout the world have come together to call foul on the violation of international law and the crossing of a sovereign border. And to stand firm, and to continue to provide to Ukraine for its self-defense. So I think that has been tremendous. The kinds of things that we have been doing with Ukraine have had – have had immediate and direct positive impact on how we think about countering other challenges around the globe.
Sometimes it’s talked about as a distraction. I think that’s entirely wrong. Everything that we have been doing and learning from the experience around Ukraine has been helping us develop out the kind of capabilities we need on the military side, but also the kind of information advantage, diplomatic advantage, and other toolkit approaches that are so critical for us.
Ms. Kirk: Let’s take a look at what advice you might have for future leaders in the Defense Department. Did you want to give advice? Or do you have advice for them? And maybe a better question is what initiatives that you’ve mentioned in this conversation that you helped to get started would you like to see stay around in the next administration, whatever administration that may be?
Hon. Hicks: Yeah. You know, I think – I mean, maybe start with that, and then on the – maybe say a couple words on the advice piece. I think on the continuation – everything I’ve just described is just good government, and it’s returning for the war fighter. And I would expect anybody coming in to want to do all those same things. We built significantly on what came before. The data decrees I mentioned built on data work that was done by my predecessor. I would – and I’m sure he built on others before him. In fact, the Advana platform that I also referenced was – came out of the late Obama administration. So you see a good pattern of building upon what came before. And I would expect that to continue.
And in terms of advice, maybe kind of connecting that, it’s to be a thoughtful consumer, an educated consumer of information, and to really be able to step back, remove the politics, and understand what it is we need to do to deliver for the warfighter. Last thing I would say, I often say to younger people – so I guess in general advice – would just be you can lead at any level. And you should be a leader at every level. Any organization you’re a part of, any system you’re a part of, you can see areas for improvement. You can advocate for those improvements. And you can be an agent of change. And that’s really what I would want anyone who’s thinking about how they drive change for the better to an outcome, innovate, you know, in order to deliver outcomes, they should be thinking about what they can do to lead and not telling themselves if they’re not at the top they’re not a leader.
Ms. Kirk: Mmm hmm. Well, this is Smart Women, Smart Power. So I have to ask you about gender and the role that you currently have. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, you are the longest serving deputy secretary of defense?
Hon. Hicks: I am the longest serving in the last 19 years.
Ms. Kirk: So has gender had an impact on how you approached your role? If so, how? If not, why not?
Hon. Hicks: So I think that’s impossible for me to answer, because I’m just me. So I’m not quite sure I can answer it that way. (Laughter.) What I will say is I profoundly feel that representation matters and that my life experiences, which, of course, include my gender, affect how I lead, how I listen, you know, how I approach my job. And so to that extent, I’m confident that all those aspects of my personality – a military brat, a woman, you name it – that all comes into play in how I live my life.
Ms. Kirk: You also have – I know this because I worked for you for seven years – you also mentor a lot of young women. What career advice would you give someone who is watching this, who is looking at you and thinking, hey, I want to do that someday?
Hon. Hicks: Yeah. Do what you love. I know that’s so trite, but if you’re not doing what you love you’re probably not going to do it very long, and you’re probably not going to be very happy – if you’re not happy, you’re probably not going to be as good at it as you wish you were. So I do think you have to either find what you love and what you do, or if that’s not possible, you know, search for the things that are really going to speak to you. Sometimes that’s, you know, found outside of work. I understand that. You know, lots of people have passions outside of work. But I think even so, in the workplace you have to find elements of it – your coworkers, you know, the work itself, the values that your work represents. They have to align at some point for you to do your best work.
I think the other thing I would say is, you know, be confident in who you are and what you bring. Much easier said than done, I am well aware. And women do face many challenges in the workplace. Often those challenges manifest in small ways. Sometimes they manifest in very large ways. Either way, it’s very challenging. And surround yourself with great friends and others who you can commiserate with. All those people need not be necessarily women, but you need to have a support structure for yourself.
Ms. Kirk: And for those senior leaders who may be watching or listening to this conversation, those who may be on that precipice of making the leap from one level of senior leadership to the highest levels, what advice do you have for them?
Hon. Hicks: You know, I think what I would say – well, first of all, strive. Go for it. Don’t count yourself out. Give yourself the same sort of boost of confidence you see others seem to have. And I think the second thing I would say, which I feel might be a slightly downer, is it doesn’t get easier. Don’t expect it to get easier. (Laughter.) Don’t expect it to get easier. Just expect to be able to do your best, and surround yourself with good people, and be confident and believe in what you’re doing.
Ms. Kirk: And as we wrap up here, I want to talk about the smart power aspect of Smart Women, Smart Power. It’s been amazing to see how this program has lifted the voices and amplified the voices of women in national security and foreign policy. That was the premise from day one. Are we defining power the right way? Is it mostly to focus on how women do things a little bit differently from men? Or is it just we need more women in powerful positions, like the one you occupy, so that things are better? I’m doing a personal comment here. (Laughter.) So that things are better or better performed?
Hon. Hicks: Well, I think I would say, you know, half the world’s population are women. If we want to make the most out of the world we have, we need to make sure we’re tapping into the talent. We use that, you know, of course, across all demographies, if you will, and all talent bases. But certainly for women, we need to be tapping into all of that. And there’s power in that, maybe I will say. And I think power is about the ability to affect outcomes. That’s ultimately what it is. And so, you know, if we’re going to be able – there are lots of ways to affect outcomes, but you need to figure out what those sources are and make sure there’s good representation. At least, equal access to trying to tap into that.
Ms. Kirk: And how long a vacation are you going to take when you’re finally done? (Laughter.)
Hon. Hicks: It’s best not to think of such things yet. (Laughter.) It’s too – someday I will vacation, yes. (Laughter.)
Ms. Kirk: Well, Deputy Secretary Hicks, it’s been a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here.
Hon. Hicks: The pleasure is all mine. Thank you so much, Bev, for doing this. And thank you to CSIS, and the Smart Women, Smart Power Program.
Ms. Kirk: Absolutely. Thank you all for being here. (Applause.)
(END.)