Who’s a Plant, Who’s a Shaper, and Who Should Be Given Cloaks?
Twenty-one famous people arriving at a castle in the Scottish Highlands, trying to figure out which of them is lying.
Ten episodes, up to £100,000 for charity, and the fabulous Claudia Winkleman appearing in increasingly magnificent coats and boots.
Celebrity Traitors 2 – WE CANNOT WAIT!
Given the home of the Traitors is Ardross Castle in Ross-shire, this surely makes The Traitors a Scottish team building exercise, no?
Right up our street. Although nobody normally gets banished from our team away days. Or murdered, thankfully. 🙂
As we spend a lot of our time analysing how teams behave and perform, there is an extra dimension to the show that is of particular interest to us – the ever evolving team dynamics.
When we look at it, The Traitors is basically the same as many team based problems we face in our daily work:
- A team often struggling to work towards a common goal
- Certain team members pulling in different directions
- Motivating and rewarding individuals based on tasks with key performance indicators
- Working to deadlines and under a lot of pressure
- Having to reach collective decisions with incomplete information
- Facing internal conflict and occasional self inflicted derailment (There’s been a murder!)
- Dealing with ongoing team downsizing, “recruitment” and the subsequent impact on the team dynamic of those that remain
- And without the key foundation needed in every team of all team – a complete lack of trust.
Strip away the cloaks, candles and Claudia’s coats and it’s a bit like most workplaces. 🙂
So as at 29/09 ahead of launch, here is our rather unscientific prediction of how the class of 2026 might align with the nine Belbin Team Roles, and who we think might be well suited to wearing the Traitor’s cloak.
(A quick caveat. To our knowledge, none of the celebs have completed a Belbin report. Our Belbin guesswork has been based on public personas, which we appreciate may not be the same in real life and is all a bit tongue in cheek.)
So here’s our take:
Co-ordinators
Michael Sheen, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Maya Jama
Co-ordinators are the people who end up chairing meetings, without anyone necessarily appointing them. They can often read the room well, bring others into play, and hold a group together while it makes a decision.
Michael Sheen has spent years engaging with people and good causes, which arguably demonstrating Co-ordinator type behaviour in its purest form.
Julie Hesmondhalgh provides a calm, principled authority that should mean the table goes quiet when she starts talking.
Maya Jama hosts live television for a living – reading the and steering discussion is not just her style, its her job.
What if we take into account the Co-ordinator’s allowable weakness? They may be seen to over delegate and aim for consensus decisions.
In the castle, whoever chairs the round table discussions, often becomes much more visible. The greater the visibility, the greater the target, the greater the risk of getting banished or murdered. So their time in the castle might be more limited…
Shapers
Ross Kemp, Romesh Ranganathan, Joanne McNally
Shapers provide drive. They push, they challenge, they are comfortable with friction, and they get things moving especially when a group is dithering.
Ross Kemp built a career walking towards things most people walk away from.
Romesh Ranganathan is not scared to boldly say the thing everyone might be thinking, even when it may not always be the most socially acceptable.
Joanne McNally has the sort of fearless, relentless energy that can lead and steer discussions assertively.
Here is our prediction: at least one of these three will leave early doors, and it may have nothing to do with whether they are a Traitor or not. Every series of this show tends to banishes someone for being overly self assured or too certain. Too much conviction can be read by some as underlying guilt at the round table. So which one of this years “Big Dogs” might be heading for an early exit? We think it could be Ross Kemp…
Plants
James Acaster, Joe Lycett
Plants are the original thinkers who come at problems from an angle nobody else might have considered.
James Acaster’s almost entire body of comedic work looks at ordinary things, but sideways. Expect some off the wall theories, unusual accusations and weird deflection tactics.
Joe Lycett has made art form out of elaborate, meticulously constructed ideas, brilliantly executed, often delivered with a poker face. A potential winning traitor in the making perhaps?
Plants can be magnificent with unique ideas, but may become creatively tiring within the group. They may generate five different theories when the group are seeking a consensus.
In the castle, this could mean an inspired leap that cracks the case, or a beautifully crafted case against an an innocent. Expect both. Simultaneously.
Our Traitorous dark horse?
That’s the way, ah ha ah ha, Joe Lycet, ah ha ah ha…
Monitor Evaluators
Professor Hannah Fry, Amol Rajan, Myha’la
If The Traitors has an obvious in house “detective” role, this is normally it. Monitor Evaluators are left brain analysts: detached, harder to sway with opinion ahead of facts, willing to sit in a room full of over enthusiastic chatter and at the end, challenge the who construct of an argument with a single, insightful observation.
Hannah Fry is a mathematician who has built a career on explaining probability to people who thought they hated it. She may be doing the maths and analysing nuances of voting patterns.
Amol Rajan interrogates people professionally and follows a trail of evidence, not opinion or mood, so expect some detached reasoning and clear thought.
Myha’la appears to have a strong, down to earth style. We expect she may take a back seat at times, especially early on, but won’t be scared to speak up when the time is right.
Hannah provides a useful examples of something we Belbin practitioners talk about a lot. Her functional role may be more of a Specialist; with deep expertise in her defined field. However, we think her strongest Team Role, the contribution she might actually make round that table, may be more Monitor Evaluator.
We think a higher risk of banishment as the start to edge closer to finding their next Traitor…
Resource Investigators
Jerry Hall, King Kenny, Rob Beckett
Resource Investigators are natural networkers, strong communicators and socialites. They chat to everyone, gather information, build alliances, and know everyone in the castle by the end of day one.
Jerry Hall has worked rooms most of us have only dreamt about.
King Kenny builds an audience for a living, which requires an instinct for what people want and how to communicate it to them.
And Rob Beckett appears to almost incapable of being in a room without becoming friends with everyone in it. Mr Nice Guy and we think may be the Faithful’s, Faithful.
This could be a genuinely strong role in the game. Useful information can flow towards the person everyone talks to. An allowable weakness of Resource Investigators – they may lose interest once the initial enthusiasm passes or look at the shiny new piece of evidence and be swayed by it.
Can they sustain focus over a ten-episode series? Time will tell.
Teamworkers
Miranda Hart, Sharon Rooney, Bella Ramsey, Leigh-Anne Pinnock
Teamworkers are the diplomats and the glue that holds a team together. They smooth over conflict and friction, notice and support those who are struggling, and hold the group together socially.
Miranda Hart’s comic persona is built on disarming, generous self-deprecation. Clearly strong teamworker traits.
Sharon Rooney radiates care, warmth and empathy.
Bella Ramsey is thoughtful and considerate, she seems to have a way at putting people at ease.
Leigh-Anne Pinnock spent a decade as a highly supportive team member in the band.
A lovely Teamworker might be the very last person people anyone suspects.
Hold on to that thought…
Implementers
James Blunt, Sebastian Croft
Implementers turn ideas into things that actually happen. Practical, reliable, disciplined.
James Blunt was an army officer before he was a musician, and reconnaissance missions in Kosovo provided a more serious grounding in dealing with practicalities under pressure than most of the castle will have ever seen.
Sebastian Croft has been working since childhood, which might help produce characteristics of someone who simply gets on with it.
The castle inhabitants need implementers more than they might realise. Missions are often practical challenges. A room full of comedians may not typically be a room that excels at logistics and planning. Even if you don;t like his music, you might want James Blunt on your task team.
Completer Finishers
Richard E. Grant
Completer Finishers notice the detail everyone else has stopped looking at.
Richard E. Grant is a recognised diarist; a lifelong recorder of exactly who said what, to whom, and in what tone.
The Completer Finisher instinct can be highly effective when applied to people and behaviour, not just the paperwork.
In a game often decided by inconsistencies, it can be one of the most useful behaviours to have in the building.
A super sleuth in the making perhaps?
Specialists
The Specialist brings deep knowledge in a narrow field. An invaluable asset in most teams, but we would argue is of more limited use in the castle, unless their behavioural skills can be put to good use in a relevant task.
The Traitors is an environment where expertise might be less valuable and the ability to read people and in this game, behaviour counts for everything.
So who do we think might make the best Traitors?
The instinct may be to pick a strong Shaper as a leader of the pack type; Bold, decisive, comfortable with conflict. Murdering? No problem, just another daily task to action.
We think not. Shapers might attract more attention due to their more outspoken style, generate more friction in the group, and that means they may more likely to be banished or murdered. Handing all three Shapers cloaks might be a fast route to a short series.
An effective Traitor role is often better suited to someone that blends into the background a bit more. Quieter, more inconspicuous behaviour works well. Which might mean the most dangerous cloak in that castle could be owned by a Teamworker or Co-ordinator.
Miranda Hart could be devastating. Self-deprecation can provide highly effective cover. It can be more difficult to suspect someone who keeps apologising for their existance.
Julie Hesmondhalgh might be believed by everybody, for as long as she liked. And Maya Jama would steer the round table towards a conclusion so smoothly that nobody would notice it had been steered at all.
Deception disguised as facilitation, with a tint of underhand play might be hard to spot.
How about a maverick, wildcard Plant Traitor?
We reckon Joe Lycett could be brilliant – a sharp mind and tongue to match, to get him out of tricky accusations. We have him down to make the final one way or another.
Lastly, picking a Monitor Evaluator Traitor could be a he genuinely frightening prospect: Hannah Fry’s calculating mind and likeable demenour could be very effective.
And who should stay Faithful?
We’d keep the analysts and detail focused as Faithful. Monitor Evaluators are the closest thing the Faithful have to an inhouse detective, and a Completer Finisher like Richard E. Grant may pick up on that one inconsistency at breakfast which could be worth an hour of round-table debate and theory.
One of the things the show demonstrates every single series, and the reason we keep watching it with a personal and professional interest, is that the Faithful seldom lose out because they lack the ability to work it out. They lose because the group often ignores the person who figured it out.
The quiet analyst gets talked over. The loudest voice sets the direction. The room converges on the easiest target rather than the most likely one. Somebody says “I’ve got a feeling” and a feeling often beats a logical argument in the castle, resulting in a regular pile on…
Which is, if we are honest, exactly what happens in a great many meetings that dont involve cloaks and a castle.
Having the right person in the room is also not the same as hearing them.
A Monitor Evaluator that nobody listens to may be as much value as not having one….
We will be watching intently.
Curious what your own team’s Belbin profile might look like?
That is what we do, minus the cloaks, candles, banishments and murders of course.
Get in touch to find out more.