Stone Gossard Quotes

I'm a leader, not a dictator. I want to persuade people rather than threaten or control them.

I was quite responsible for stirring things up. I conspired to get Ringo in for good; I talked to Paul and John until they came round to the idea.

The only way to conduct an effective collaboration is to debate the things upon which you disagree. If one doesn't manage to bring the other around to his point of view, then whichever collaborator feels the most passionate about the thing being debated ought to get his way.

Any decision made by my father was the result of a process that had involved many voices and which sometimes had taken weeks or months.

I have no idea what goes on in another person's mind. As a legislator, I need to be good at persuading people, counting votes and getting to 50 percent plus one. I don't go back and say, 'Why did this person get to the right position?' It's only, 'Are you yes or are you no?'

Because of the term ‘whip’, it is assumed that members can be beaten into submission, but I’ve seldom seen that be successful. It’s getting to know the individual, what they think, how they feel, what’s going on in their personal life, are they agonizers or quick deciders, what kind of leverage can be used with them or on them.

I have a lot of power. Here, I can decide: training at six in the morning! Training 11 in the night! But my style is not to impose. I would like to convince the players of what they are doing. This takes more time.

If we had had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.

At a school in Massachusetts where I once worked, we managed early on through consensus. Which sounds wonderful, but it was just a very, very difficult way to sort of manage anything, because convincing everybody to do one particular thing, especially if it was hard, was almost impossible.

Power is getting things done without having to demonstrate that you can bulldoze it through. I'm most effective when I've studied an issue, when I can make a credible argument, and then bring people along.

Consensus building doesn't necessarily fit with my experience.

It was my wife that insisted I do 'The Hangover.'

When people disagree with you, what you ultimately have to do is persuade people to agree with you - period.

I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.

If you're going to have to beg them to play, it's not going to work.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You're trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren't very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

So I told Robert from the start that if we couldn't get Charles and Max to take part, but especially Charles, that I didn't want to make the film. So would he call his mother and talk to Charles and see if Charles would at all be interested.

Even within the band, if I cannot manage to persuade the members of what I see to be the next course of action, how do you expect the group to deal with the expectations of thousands of people. It is not possible.

My predecessor, P. W. Botha, had an inner circle, and I did not like it. I preferred decisions to evolve out of cabinet discussions. That way, we achieved real co-ownership of our policies.

As to such of them as you cannot prevail with to concur you are to endeavor at least to soften them in their opposition or to get them to be absent.

I cannot consult with 535 strong willed individuals.

Nine times out of ten your two smartest policy advisors disagree.

I'm not their leader really. They don't do what I tell them. I do what they tell me.

Part of your job as President is not only to make the tough calls, but to get people to agree with you.

With five votes and you can get anything around here.