Latest / Daily Influence / 839. Responsible AI Leadership: Why Human Accountability Still Matters with Dylan Reid

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839. Responsible AI Leadership: Why Human Accountability Still Matters with Dylan Reid · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Be sure to follow, subscribe, and share Daily Influence with someone who could use a little extra positivity today.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And make us part of your Daily routine, whether it's during your commute, on a walk, or an quiet momentous for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Grecollino.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today I'm joined by Dylan Reed, president of Dylan Reed Media.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dylan works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, healthcare, reimbursement, and policy.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Helping organizations think more clearly about how AI decisions affect patients.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: clinicians and the healthcare system as a whole.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what interested me about Dylan goes beyond technology.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: His approach combines disciplined execution, transparency, personal responsibility, and a belief that innovation has to ultimately serve people.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's also built a distinct personal professional identity influenced by everything from southern hospitality and New York monolism to leaders like Nick Sabin and El Davis.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: An outside of healthcare he's beginning his own journey as a country music songwriter.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dylan, welcome to daily influence.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Greg, thank you for having me.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've brought together some very different influences in your life.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Healthcare and technology, your southern background, New York culture, leaders like Nick Sabin and El Davis, and now even songwriting.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: When you look across those influences, what principles have become non-negotiables and how you lead, build, and show up for other people?
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think to start off by saying, I think people have this tendency to think that leadership
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: big moments that really define our careers and it kind of really define how people perceive us, but I really look at leadership as coming up to speak up for yourself because at the end of the day, you're your biggest advocate and no one else will.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Some people think leadership is about fighting every battle, but in reality it's about fighting for what actually matters and a lot of folks believe that winning comes from these dramatic breakthroughs, but it comes from
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: showing up every day and doing those small things correctly, you know, Al Davis in particular who I consider a big inspiration for me, you know,
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: former owner of the Oakland Raiders, and then they were the Los Angeles Raiders, and then they came back to Oakland, now they're in Las Vegas.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, really taught me to embrace being different and kind of staying loyal to people who commit to you.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nick Sabin, on the other hand, really taught me that success comes from the fundamentals and those details and doing those things correctly on a consistent basis.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I like to consider myself as carrying northern mannerisms, a southern hospitality, and that makes shows up in how I lead, which is direct, warm, disciplined, and consistent.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, songwriting fits into that too as well, you know, being a beginning-country music songwriter, you know, recently finishing an EP, you know, working on, you know, some singles right now, you know,
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: really been from experiences that I've lived and, you know, topics, you know, I believe that people all people can relate to, you know, growing up, you know, my mom, two tone Chevy suburban, I remember, you know, listening to Mickey Gillie and George straight, you know, they were always playing, you know, in her car and those two artists have really shaped how I see authenticity and storytelling.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you mentioned how you choose to show up and that gets directly into something we talk about frequently and daily influence.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are influencing people whether we realize that or not the question is whether we are doing it responsibly and you're were.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: in your prior authorization and reimbursement can sound very technical.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: But ultimately, those systems can determine whether someone gets access to care.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you share a moment when you saw the human impact behind the process and it changed the way you thought about your responsibility and work?
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you know, to start off with.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people, so healthcare is a big field in general, you have people that specialize either in drug pricing, market access, you know, patient provider, you know, and I think there tends to be this mindset that, you know, I'll take prior authorization as an example that, you know, because it's the area I work in, we treat it as a technical workflow,
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: It really helps determine whether someone receives care and if they do, how do they receive that care?
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: My background being in patient advocacy made that clear of family's fighting for rare disease treatments weren't debating policy.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were trying to access care that could change their lives, and that can make them feel better.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to get a little bit into the politics of it, because I think it's, you have to have an understanding of that
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: release, you know, really have a clear perspective on, you know, how health care is really shaped in the United States is, you know, some believe, you know, funding solves every problem.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I really look at it as funding without structures creates these expectations and political tensions.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, then it creates this belief that every patient,
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do I think that there are some patients who really do need the care and do they use the system responsibly?
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I'm not saying that they don't.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, we also have to acknowledge that there are some patients who do take advantage of that same system.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it really opened up my eyes too as well as, you know, I had this belief that, oh, our country is really big and, you know, civic participation is strong because our country, you know, because the population is huge.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I really thought and really kind of being, you know,
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, on the other side, you know, being helping these, you know, patients and, you know, telling their advocacy stories, civic participation is relatively low to compare, you know, to the population in the United States and that gap really means that elected officials often make decisions without hearing from the people who are most affected.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and the struggle is really getting people to understand what life is like when someone is living with an ailment.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's, we tend to think about it as the physical toll, but it's also that financial toll that follows every appointment, every treatment, and every delay.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's really shaped my responsibility and reimbursement work, you know, telling the truth even when the truth is complicated.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've said that AI and healthcare needs to be transparent, explainable and governed rather than simply treated as a black box for a leader listening who may be adopting AI and healthcare or really in any business.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: What framework should they use to determine where AI should make a decision, where a human should remain involved, and who ultimately owns that outcome?
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of leaders tend to think that AI automatically fixes problems.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can throw the technology on the workflow, and it's good to be running business as usual.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the thing is, is that AI only works when the workflow is understood first.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's the question that you're really trying to solve here?
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you want less delays in care, do you want more doctors to see more patients quicker?
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you've got to really have an understanding of what is the question that you're trying to ask yourself and then building a system around that.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then there's this assumption that, oh well, if AI can do it, I don't need a human being can do it.
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And a human doesn't have to do it.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you have that assumption that AI can replace judgment.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: A.I.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: supports the judgment, you know, there there needs to be a delineation between replacing, you know, versus supporting, because at the end of the day that experience still belongs to humans, you know,
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's also that cost consideration to as well.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's this belief that let's look at cost reductions first.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: But at the end of the day, cost reductions don't solve long-term problems.
• 9:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: They need to understand the entire workflow and ask, what is the decision going to look like six months or a year down the line?
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: If we decide to implement this technology, or if we do not decide to implement this technology,
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and leaders don't necessarily think about, you know, downstream impacts, which is where the real risk lives and I, you know, understand that some leaders, you know, they have to have, you know, accordingly report or it's, you know, weekly update or, you know, so, you know, having an understanding of kind of like where does that fit into their organizational system and how I really approach, you know, frameworks in general is it's, you know,
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not overly complicated, not overthinking it.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's understanding the workflow, evaluating the risk, assigning ownership because at the end of the day, AI becomes effective when leaders treat it as a tool, not as a replacement.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And accountability becomes particularly important when something doesn't work is intended because good leadership isn't really tested when everything goes according to plan.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So tell me about a decision, a project, or a assumption that didn't work the way you expected it to.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: What did you initially get wrong?
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what specific change did you make to your decision-making or leadership afterward?
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I thought I could just contribute to AI conversations without understanding the technical side.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So talking in those buzzwords of bias, transparency, you know, accountability, yes, they are important, but it doesn't necessarily build a hundred percent credibility.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I decided to learn how to code, you know, I'm not an engineer, developed by training, you know, I really don't see myself going kind of going down that path, but I really wanted to understand how the technology actually works.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like how does the model be built, how does the model, how does the code talk to the computer, and like how, how does that relationship work, you know, and I used to think
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: But leadership without technical literacy really limits impact and kind of understanding the mechanics changes how I make decisions and how I contribute to technical teams.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, another thing to is a while back I wrote a book called Hope is not a strategy.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I came out alive and you know, it really kind of helped me understand and it really made me reflect on how, you know, how much I've grown as a person up until this point.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the book is really about, you know, grit, scars and choosing to show up when everything when everything and everyone says quit.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, people from all walks of life have helped me understand that growth comes from facing difficulty and not avoiding it.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And people talk about building a strong culture, but culture could become a vague concept very quickly.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Drawing from the leaders who have influenced you and your own experience, how do you actually build culture intentionally?
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The mainstream definition tends to be culture is something that's written, it's a slogan that we all believe and we all walk past it and we might recognize it this day, we might not.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: But really it comes from daily behavior and there seems to be this, you know, well, if we put talented people in a room, that alone is going to carry the team and that's going to help achieve the organizational objectives.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you don't have the right manager or the right leader managing that talent and that team collapses very quickly, you know, because you can't take.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: talented people without the right leader and assume that they're automatically going to understand expectations, you know, yeah, you know, you don't have to, you know, these people are smart and they're talented, but they're going to have to be given clarity to help them lead and understand like what are the organizational objectives and how does their role fit into that?
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if, and if you don't have that, you know, then it leads to misalignment and then it creates chaos and if that chaos does not stay contained, it really forces people to go into, into survival mode and it pushes people into situations and roles that don't fit them, which creates inefficiencies and then, you know, that leads in the turnover, so it,
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really, you know, how I let the image that I really like to use, it's a domino effect, you push one domino and then it all comes, you know, it can all be built up or it can all, you know, it can all come crashing down.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, for me, strong culture really comes from role alignment, consistent communication and leaders who understand the people that they manage.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then when those pieces are in place, culture then becomes something that people feel.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you could sit down with your younger self at the beginning of your career, knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself to take more seriously and what would you tell yourself to stop worrying about?
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I used to think every person in my career that I met would help me grow, but I have learned the older I've gotten that the wrong people slow progress.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would tell my younger self to take people's selection seriously, don't worry about everyone's
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, your their opinions are usually projections of, you know, of their own limitations on you.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I tell him to focus and him being younger, Dylan, to focus on finding people to who understand where he is going, not people who only understand where they have been.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I tell him to trust his instincts more and stop giving energy to people who misunderstand his goals because at the end of the day, growth comes from alignment
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when someone finishes listening to this conversation, I don't want them to simply think differently.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want them to do something differently.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So what is one intentional action you would challenge someone to take in the next 24 hours?
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they can make them a more responsible influence on the people around them.
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So people seem to think that influence comes from speaking more and being the loudest person in the room.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, but how I look at it is, you know, influence really comes from asking better questions.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: When someone says, you know, for example, everyone is upset, you know, most people accept it.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: A very small percentage of people then ask, okay, what is, what is it about specifically and like what exactly happened?
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: What was said when, you know, that, who, what, when, where, why?
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if enough people challenge big narratives,
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: organizations become clear more honest and less political.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then from their accountability rises, confusion drops, and then communication improves.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So thank you for joining me today.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so?
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the best way is on LinkedIn, you know, very active on there.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can also go to my website at
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: all of the stuff related to Dylan Reed media.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I also am on sub stack too, as well, through the AI healthcare sub stack.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Great.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: We will put all that information in this show notes.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for joining us and sharing your stories and advice.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me, Greg.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: into our listeners.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Daily Influence.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Help us spread the positivity by subscribing and sharing daily influence.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Remember small actions create big impact, keep showing up, leading and growing one day to time.
• 16:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive, responsible influence.