Career = Long Obedience in the Same Direction
Dale Wallace felt called to ministry. Then his calling changed.
After about 10 years leading in ministry, Dale found himself somewhere he never saw coming: founder and CEO of LYTE, a consumer AI product built for Christians who want the fruits of AI without the thorns. Eighteen months ago, this company didn't exist. Now they're live.
The path here wasn't straight, but the lessons Dale picked up along the way about teams, delegation, knowing your gifts, and more are invaluable.
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What are some key takeaways from your career journey?
A career is long obedience in the same direction. You're taking one step in front of the other going up this mountain, and a lot of what you learn is more helpful than it feels at the time.
For example, I worked for a nonprofit and built trust with donors. Fast forward to now, and part of what I'm doing is working with people to raise capital. These conversations look pretty similar. I’m casting vision and building relationships.
In that previous role, I hated fundraising. I thought it was sticky and icky. I truly did not enjoy it. And now I'm back in those conversations with some of the same people, and I'm way more prepared. I just had a poor view of the lessons I was learning along the way.
A career is long obedience in the same direction. You're taking one step in front of the other going up this mountain, and a lot of what you learn is more helpful than it feels at the time.
How would you describe your ideal team player?
I always try to round out my weaknesses. I'm a visionary, I move fast, and I'm terrible at communication. I'll make a decision and just assume everyone downstream understands what's going on. So I'm always looking to bring on people who round out those edges. My colleague at the family office is an operations guy, a process guy, a communication guy.
A team where everyone looks the same is going to be a bad team. Five visionaries? A lot of ideas, a lot of vision, zero execution.
The other thing I keep coming back to is this framework: we're looking for people who are FAT:
Faithful: We give something to you, and you do it.
Available: You’re around when something comes up.
Teachable: You ask for feedback and learn from that feedback.
What are the common mistakes you see that damage team culture?
Managers and bosses who make all the decisions. It’s a huge miss if an employee comes to their boss with a problem, and the boss tells them exactly what to do. Some of the best bosses I've had coached me to come up with the problem and come up with three solutions and a suggestion. That creates a conversation. The boss can give the green light or make it a teachable moment and explain how they'd think about it differently. When bosses just tell people what to do, they miss the opportunity to teach them how to think, not just what to do.
The second thing that truly kills team culture is gossip. You know that feeling of leaving a room and wondering if people are talking about what you said in that meeting? When that feeling exists on a team, something is already broken. Don’t talk about people; we talk to people. If someone rambled in an important meeting, tell them with gentleness, when they're in a position to receive it. Create feedback loops to kill gossip before it takes root.
Is there someone who has made a transformative impact on a team you've been part of? What set them apart?
The best leaders I know embrace their quirks and communicate them clearly. That kind of clarity makes a team run like a well-oiled machine. Everyone knows how to work together, so you stop wasting energy figuring it out.
Another person who stands out is a student I mentored in college ministry. He was applying for a job, and the company reached out to me and said he'd flagged low on follow-through in a test. But everyone who knew him would've said the opposite. He's one of the best I've seen at follow-through. What I realized is that he'd built systems around his weakness. He couldn't outsource it, so he systematized it. The best players understand their gifts and either outsource their weaknesses or systematize around them, and then focus on the things that bring the most value.
What have you learned from the hiring process?
We look at the three C's in hiring:
Competency: Can they do the job?
Character: Are they who they said they are?
Culture fit: Do they make your team better?
One of the hardest things is discerning whether someone is a culture fit, and then holding to it. Sometimes you have to wait. You might have someone super competent but lacking on the culture side, and it's tempting not to wait. Often, people regret that.
So, how do you determine culture fit? References help, and then asking out-of-the-box questions that reflect your actual values. If fun is a value, ask them about the most fun they've ever had on a team. If transparency matters, ask them to tell you about a time they had to own a mistake publicly. They might say they don't have an example. That's transparent in itself, which is helpful. Every organization has questions that only they would think to ask. Figure out what yours are.
If someone only takes one thing away from this conversation, what would you want it to be?
Use your gifts, and figure out how to get to a place where you're using them.
If you're not there yet in your career, do everything in your power to skill them up so that one day you can get paid for doing the things you're most energized by.
And alongside that, go tinker with AI. Take your resume, go to Replit or Lovable, and tell it to build you a resume landing page. Organizations aren't looking for experts. They're looking for people who are more familiar with it than the person who's about to retire and doesn't care.
Don't fall for the fear-mongering and the doomsday. Go tinker, learn, and have fun with it. I had a friend who refused to touch it. He kept texting me asking me to do the simplest things for him. That same friend recently sent me a scoreboard he built with AI for his kids' spring break competition. He changed. That's what tinkering does.
What skill or trait do you think will be essential for success in the future of work?
Understand how you specifically add value. Then focus on it. It doesn't matter if you're in HR, sales, engineering, or management. The salespeople aren't the only ones adding value. Everyone in an organization needs a laser focus on how they contribute. Too many people are caught in the mundane, just collecting a paycheck without asking how they could do more. The people who know their highest-value function, automate or delegate the rest, and stay focused on what they do best are the people who are going to stand out.
The problem is you think everyone has the same gifts you do. One of the simplest things you can do is ask your friends. Ask them what you do that seems normal to you but that other people can't do. What are your superpowers? It's a meaningful question, and most people haven't really sat down to answer it.
Thank you so much for sharing, Dale.
If you'd like to connect with Dale or learn more about his work, find him on LinkedIn here.