Today, I finished reading the attributes by Rich Diviney. It’s a fascinating book, full of interesting insights and enlightening commentary on the human psyche, behaviour and interactions.
It sets out 25 human attributes critical for optimum performance, grouped under five headings. The ones that interested me most were adaptability within the grit group, learnability in the mental acuity group, empathy, selflessness and authenticity in the leadership group and humility in the team ability attributes.
An attribute is an inherent quality or characteristic that an individual has. Diviney describes an attribute and a skill in a similar way to how you and I describe and differentiate relational or soft skills, and hard skills. That means there is a lot of commonality in Diviney’s discussion about discussion and the way I discuss self aware leadership, making this book really relevant to me and very interesting.
If we take authenticity, for example, Diviney defines it as ‘the degree to which a person’s actions are consistent with his beliefs, values and desires, despite external pressure’. To know ones beliefs, values and desires, one has to have self-awareness!
Diviney describes the 25 attributes in a very accessible way, and exemplifies them with stories from his time as a navy SEAL commander. His stories are engaging and captivating, The book is very male dominated: that might be because navy SEAL teams are only made up of men – I don’t know, but it was something I observed.
The book is hefty and heavy and there is a lot to get through so I think it could be helped with summary infographics but what you can do, if you go to the attributes.com, is access online assessments to measure grit, mental acuity and drive. Give them a whirl – you know I’m all for anything that helps build self-awareness! You can also supplement your development with workbooks.
I certainly think there is a lot for individuals, teams and team leaders to learn from this book. A definite five from me.
