Teambuilding Secrets of Burns and Allen
Before comedian George Burns could become “God” he had to become part of a team to succeed. George Burns started out as a solo act. He tried everything to make it in show-business and failed. He was a singer, a dancer, a comedian. He even did a dog act and then a seal act. George had a few human partners but still no success. No matter what type of act he tried, he failed.
Then one day he met Gracie Allen. They decided to team up as a comedy team, Burns and Allen. Didn’t they succeed right away? No. The reason I believe they weren’t a success at first was because even though they were a team they were both in the wrong role. Sometime teams don’t work out because their roles aren’t defined or they are in the wrong role. This is what happened early on to Burns and Allen. At first George Burns thought that he would be the comic and Gracie would be the, what they call in show-business as the straight-man (or in this case the straight-woman) When they debuted the act they weren’t that funny. A couple of write ups in the paper said that they didn’t think the act would last very long.
So how did they become regarded as one of the greatest stand-up comedy acts in history? First they had to realize that what they were doing wasn’t working. Quite often a team isn’t successful is because they fail to realize their team isn’t working until it is too late.
Then they had to figure out what it was that was working and what wasn’t working. They had to build on what was working and scrap what was failing. In this case they realized that the audiences were laughing at what Gracie was saying. So they switched roles. George became the Straight-man and Gracie became the comic. The rest is history they became a successful comedy team in Vaudeville, Radio, and Television.
When building a team it is important to get the right people for the team. Define each team member’s role. What will their contribution to the team be to reach its objectives? If a team member isn’t working out in a certain role maybe the team member needs to be moved to some other role that will help him contribute. If not maybe they aren’t right for the team.