Claudia Christian Quotes

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can't get creative and find alternate solutions if they don't listen to each other. There's a lot of arguing and justifying.

When you work alone, you need to socialize at some level.

If the auto plants in Detroit would just sit around the table and say, 'What do we gotta do to make this thing work?' Instead of, 'I want this and I want that.' They might make it.

The good thing about working alone is I get a lot done and I can experiment more. The bad thing is I miss out on the gregarious, social way that most musicians work.

The only thing we don't do together is get in front of an actor and show any indecision at all about what we think. We don't always agree, so we meet privately, then one or the other will approach the actor.

You learn how to compromise and you learn how to read each other. Honestly, being in a band with two guys has prepared me so much for when it's time for me to get married!

I always have a ping-pong table in the studio. If you're with an artist and you notice the situation is going south a little bit, it's like, 'You wanna play ping-pong or foosball?' Or, 'You wanna go grab somethin' to eat?' And then you just like talk to them and relax them and get them comfortable and get yourself comfortable.

Any good director, and I've worked with a few that I would call very good, they know how to disarm any anxieties very quickly.

You learn a lot about a person when you work together.

Well, then we got to know each other and eventually worked out a bit of idea of management.

One thing I learned particularly at Yale was how to work with others. Having studied so long trying to master myself, the biggest challenge was learning about the other person's work.

I've worked on shows where the actors don't talk to each other, and if they want to talk to each other, they talk through the director. What kind of existence is this? If I have to spend 14 hours a day with somebody, we're in a relationship. We'd better talk it out.

Some of my colleagues I have the most differences with in decisions are ones with whom I have a very friendly relationship. You have to be able to step back and look at the issues and your colleagues.

What I've learned - after working for, I guess, some time now - is when you're approaching a relationship like that, like, any working relationship, it's good to be open. To know that someone might have a different way of doing things and listen to them. And hopefully, you come to a common understanding.

When you start to work with someone, there's a negotiation that takes place involving what's going to happen when you have a difference of opinion. Most attempts at collaboration never survive the negotiation. Merely being agreeable is not enough.

Great teams argue. Not in a mean-spirited or personal way, but they disagree when important decisions are made.

As much as I love Twitter, Twitter feuds aren't going to work. Actually connecting requires true face-to-face time. I believe with all my heart that it's only after working side by side with another person that you earn the right to speak into that person's life.

In a way, sometimes collaborating is more difficult because you have to listen.

I wasn't letting people in with the music writing process, and for a long time, I thought I was hard to work with.

Working with other people, it's hard to get them to make it sound like what you have in mind.

When leaders choose to burn bridges instead of build them, they sacrifice their ability to do their jobs.

I love having that creative discussion where, at the end of the day, you both feel better for having done it. Maybe it's a typically Jewish thing, where you sort of go at each other.

Kev has these old Boston drills, where you all have to talk to each other, and interact, and it's helped us.

I would have strong opinions and be prepared to argue my case, but if you talk to my colleagues, I think you'd find they consider me the jokester, the informal mayor of the West Wing.

I believe you can work with anybody.