TheBridge profile: Kristin Smith
Name: Kristin Smith
Current city: Washington, DC
Current job: Senior Vice President, Communications at the Association of American Railroads
Past job: Vice President at Ogilvy Public Relations
Q. Favorite spot for a coffee meeting? If by coffee you mean wine, let’s go to Maxwell Park in Shaw. It has a chalkboard bar top that’s perfect for brainstorming.
Q. Describe how a skill you learned in a previous job helped you in your current job. As a young advertising executive penning my first creative brief, I was taught that effective communication addresses the rational and emotional needs of the target audience. Knowing how to appeal to the heart and mind has been critical to the success of communications campaigns I've led, whether the goal was to sell more products, rebrand an industry, weather a national crisis, or advocate for policy change. In today’s era of “post-truth” discourse and a fragmented media landscape, the ability to craft a well-researched, fact-based argument that embraces your audience’s values, beliefs and identify is more important than ever to maintain trust and motivate action.
Q. Job advice in three words? Negotiation is power.
Q. How are you (or your company, org, nonprofit) currently bridging the gap between innovation and regulation? While a freight train may look the same as it did when you were a child, the technology powering it today is almost like science fiction. Our job is to help policymakers understand the vision behind the industry’s modernization and understand what railroads need from them to meet our shared goals of economic recovery and prosperity, improved safety and a sustainable transportation solution. Since we can’t bring policymakers to the railroad, we launched a multi-year effort to bring the railroad to them. By harnessing the power of VR and the visceral impact of hands-on learning, we gave policymakers unprecedented access to rail experts and provided railroads face-to-face advocacy with hundreds of policy influencers in a highly immersive event. Today, we continue this initiative through a variety of activities designed to demonstrate how railroads apply technology to drive safety, service and environmental improvements for people nationwide.
Q. What can innovators learn from policymakers? Discipline. Innovation by nature is a challenge for policymakers. This challenge increases in direct proportion to the speed of innovation. While new technologies, transformative business practices and groundbreaking ideas bring the prospect of big solutions and myriad benefits, they can also have unpredictable effects on the policy landscape and make it difficult to keep pace with change. Taking the time to understand the legacy policy framework, address the concerns of policymakers’ constituencies and engage the support of influential allies can make it easier to navigate these waters more adroitly.
Q. What can policymakers learn from innovators? Vision. Innovators look at old challenges through new eyes. They see where they want to go and then experiment with the best way to get there. Policymakers can do the same thing. By recognizing what the end game is and that there may be multiple ways to accomplish it, policymakers open up the landscape to address old, persistent challenges in new meaningful ways. One way to do that is to shift from prescriptive to performance-based regulations that identify desired results and performance criteria without dictating the process.
Q. Favorite book/podcast/long-form article you recommend? My all-time favorite book is the unabridged version of Stephen King’s The Stand, an epic novel about a superflu that decimates the world’s population and results in the ultimate fight between good and evil. While this is an apocryphal story, it rings surprisingly true today with commentary on human nature and society; an interesting view into politics, government and media; and an opportunity to consider how you would take a stand to protect the future. And it is just a darn good read.
Q. Everyday is probably different, but can you describe a "day in the life" of your job? Each day, I am fortunate to learn something new, exercise my creativity, mentor bright young professionals and support a small, but powerful industry. Knowing that I can play a role in making sure freight trains can deliver the food to feed the world, the energy to power our homes, and the materials to keep manufacturers manufacturing and builders building is very rewarding. As we like to say, where trains go, big things follow.
Q. What's one piece of advice you are still trying to master? I have discovered that “finding balance” is a somewhat Sisyphean task. It is not easy to find the balance between work and family, between sleep and exercise, between being “connected” and being “present," but I’m striving for progress, not perfection.
Q. Most underrated virtue in an employee? I want to work with people who are curious. Curiosity exposes us to different world views, experiences and people. It opens our minds to a diverse array of information, spurs greater insight and ignites creativity. Curiosity should never be underrated – it is the DNA that makes problems solvers, innovators, leaders, collaborators and anyone with a zest for life.
Q. Best advice you’ve received? My former boss, a woman I am proud to call a mentor and friend, modeled the importance of doing well by doing good. She instilled in me the desire to return the favor by helping the next generation – especially young women – make their indelible mark on the world.
Q. Embarrassing work moment? I’ve come to learn that my team developed a quasi-scientific method to assess my mood. Apparently, I fiddle with my curly hair when I am having a frustrating day, which causes it to frizz and grow proportionally. My coworkers use the size of my hair as a barometer to measure how my day is going. When my “hairometer” gets particularly large, the more intrepid of them have learned that inviting me for a quick run to the popcorn truck predisposes much more productive interactions. That and a spritz of frizz-calming spray!
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