Walker Webcast: Former SEALs Commander Rich Diviney Says It’s About Attributes More Than Skills

Rich Diviney was one of 168 members of his class who began Navy SEAL training, and one of 38 who completed it. Among the 130 classmates who didn’t finish the course were young men who seemingly had all of the right skills, while others he wouldn’t have expected to excel turned out to be star performers, Diviney said on this week’s Walker Webcast.

“It was all about taking you down to zero and seeing what you have,” said Diviney. What those who made it into the elite cadre of SEALs had in common was an abundance of attributes, more so than skills. Those attributes are often hidden and only become evident in high-pressure situations, such as the Hell Week that occurs early in any would-be SEAL’s training.

A retired SEAL who was deployed 11 times to Iraq and Afghanistan, Diviney has taken his experience and observations from 20-plus years with the cadre—to include serving as the officer in charge of training for a specialized command—and applied them to civilian life. He has worked as a speaker, facilitator and consultant on both team-building and individual achievement, and recently published his first book, The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance.

Although the popular perception of SEALs envisions them busting down doors like SWAT teams, Diviney told Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker that the cadre’s missions often are conducted in stealth. “We plan missions to avoid firing a shot,” although it doesn’t always turn out that way, said Diviney.

Among the characteristics SEALs have in abundance is courage, which Diviney defined as “the ability to step into our fear” and operate within it. He cited it as a core attribute, along with such other traits as adaptability and cunning. 

That kind of adaptability translates into the business world as well. During the webcast, Walker reasoned that perhaps his company should take a different tack in developing its pitch books, focusing on how its professionals handle the unexpected rather than emphasizing their competencies.

SEALs are trained to be “aerobic thinkers,” said Diviney. They play a long game as opposed to making a sudden sprint to the goalpost, and therefore pacing is important. 

It’s the difference between peak performance and optimal performance, said Diviney. “The problem is that peak is an apex, and it’s an apex from which you can only come down.”

Although the process of team-building in the corporate world doesn’t need to be as “Machiavellian” as SEALs training, the idea is to see how team members respond to a variety of situations, Diviney said. He recommended developing a list of relevant attributes and then designing activities and environments to tease out those attributes in the participants.

On-demand replays of the May 26 webcast are available by clicking here and through Walker & Dunlop’s Driven by Insight podcast series.