Podcast Interview with Cletis Earle, Part 1: “We Need Everybody to Help Address This.”

When Cletis Earle stepped in as CIO at Penn State Hershey at the start of 2020, he barely had time to walk through the door before having to deal with a major disruption. By the time the organization wrapped its arms around that issue, Covid-19 started developing into pandemic.

Talk about a baptism by fire. “Everything had to go on the backburner,” said Earle in a recent interview. Fortunately, Penn State Health’s IT team adopted an “agile, fail-fast methodology” that enabled them to deal with the challenges at hand, while building up the skills needed to prepare for a potential second wave.

However, another issue surfaced for which no one was truly equipped when the death of George Floyd shined a light on racial injustice. And in fact, it was Covid-19 that removed so many of the issues that usually serve as distractions from the news – for example, the cancellation of sports events and movies – and brought the topic of racism to the front burner.

In our interview, Cletis opened up about the inequities that still exist in industries like healthcare IT, what leaders can do to address the lack of diversity, and why he believes that having tough conversations is so important – but at the same time, it can’t be all talk.

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Key Takeaways



* Making quick adjustments: The adoption of an “agile, fail-fast methodology” enabled Penn State Health’s IT to make the quick adjustments needed to care for patients during the pandemic. Fortunately, having been through it, Earle believes the organization will be better prepared for the next wave.

* Giving credit where it’s due: What IT teams accomplished in being able to support thousands of remote workers was “no easy feat,” and it’s critical that they are recognized for their efforts, said Earle.

* Starting early: Racism and other forms of discrimination are social problems; “and with any social problem you have to start early,” said Earle, who believes action needs to be taken right out of the gate in order to eliminate the problem.

* Getting the community involved: It can’t just be people of color going into schools to help build a pipeline, said. In fact, he believes “it’s even more powerful if white male CIOs and IT executives go into inner city schools and talk about opportunities that exist.”





Q&A with Cletis Earle, Part 1



Gamble:  When did you actually start your current role?

Earle:  I started right at the beginning of the year — the first week in January.

 

Gamble:  I’m sure the first couple of weeks were about getting to know the organization and the people.

Earle:  It was interesting because during the first couple of weeks, we had some major system issues here. It was tough; it was like baptism by fire. I was dealing with some major disruption issues, and once we started to get out of that, it was February. We were trying to ramp down and remediate, and then soon as that occurred, we had Covid. So it’s been a whirlwind; a true whirlwind the likes I’ve never, ever seen before.

 

Gamble:  I can imagine. What is the status now in terms of Covid? Is your team still remote?

Earle:  Yes. We’re still operating at a remote level. We’re trying to determine what’s going to happen going forward — how many people are going to be permanently remote. We’re going to use that framework to build a model of what the new norm is. It’s been an interesting process.

It’s similar to September 11; that event changed our world. It created disruption, and we learned to live with it.