Debra L. Reed Quotes

In every decision that we've ever made that's important, the more input, the more people we've heard from, the better the result. And so that will never change in the business model of NASCAR, because the ideas come from all over the place, and that's the strength that we have.

I love collaborating with different voices.

I always say that I'm not the director, I'm part of the team.

I'm not really a control person, and I'm a big believer in collaboration. I like to have a friend.

You can't run a government from one single person. What instead matters is that leadership be about gathering around extraordinary individuals and getting the best out of them.

Part of me loves to control and to exert power, but it's not the best part of me at all. What I am slowly learning is that allowing others to have power too makes us a better organisation - many brains are simply better than one.

My office has no walls. You can't be removed from your team to be successful. You have to be respectful of others.

I'm a big fan of having a team with different thoughts and backgrounds and experiences; that makes for a better enterprise and better decision-making.

In our band, we had such an interesting democracy, and it worked really well.

Working crew made me realise that the actors are a very small part of a very big machine, with each part being vital to make the show work. It so important to remember that it's not about you, it's about the show, and working crew hammered that point home to me.

I think I used to do everything and then people had a problem with that within the band, so we're doing more of a communal thing.

What I've learned is that unless it's an emergency, like a fire or brain surgery, hierarchy is not necessary and may be damaging. If you have a hierarchy, you're repeating the strengths and weaknesses of one person without allowing for the accumulative strength of a group.

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

There are two kinds of people in this world. 'I' people and 'we' people. I've always tried to be a 'we' person.

If you have somebody who's brilliant and highly creative with a different point of view than you have, and a very different intellectual background, great things can happen.

What I love about collaborating is that you're working with other minds that work differently to yours.

The directors I respect are the ones who have a collaborative attitude, who collaborate with actors.

The environment in a writer's room, I've really come to feel, should be some form of democracy.

It'll be all of our efforts together. It won't won't ever be exactly the way I imagined it. And that is, I think, an important lesson as well, is that in any group enterprise it's going to be the sum total of the group.

'Star Trek' is about a bunch of disparate people and what they're capable of when they work together.

One of the things I'm adamant about as a bandleader is not micromanaging. I'm an advocate for the concept of allowing everyone to be fully vested in what they're doing, so everyone contributes whatever they're inspired to contribute.

I always believe it's better to have 30 imaginations working on a project, rather than one imagination telling the other 29 what to do.

Many years ago, I think I got my first insight on how an incredibly diverse team can work together and do astonishing things, and not just misunderstand each other and fight.

That's the nice thing about collaborating with someone: Your work becomes a conversation.

I always want to be a part of ensembles. Besides it feeling safer, I think it's a more fun environment to work in. To have a bunch of people collaborating on something, it takes the pressure off of each individual.