Agile Businesses: McKinsey’s Candace Lun Plotkin On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face Of Disruptive Technologies

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Teamwork: Teamwork is so important, especially during periods of uncertainty. I encourage people to work with others that have adjacent skillsets and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow, both individually and as part of the organization. Organizations that have a learning and development culture can create very engaging experiences for individuals and teams to continuously learn and contribute.

As a part of my series about the “How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant in The Face of Disruptive Technologies”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Candace Lun Plotkin.

Candace is a partner in McKinsey’s Marketing & Sales Practice and the global coleader of our B2B digital sales and analytics work. Her expertise spans commercial excellence, marketing and sales strategy and execution, digital sales and marketing, e-commerce, go-to-market strategy, sales compensation, and B2B-customer decision journeys.

Candace specializes in helping businesses develop and deliver strategic-improvement programs in commercial functions across a range of B2B and B2B2C industries, such as industrial, high tech, medical technology, healthcare, and packaged goods. She is the architect of McKinsey’s go-to-market-excellence and commercial-excellence workshops, in which more than 3,500 top sales executives from around 1,000 marquee companies have participated.

Before joining McKinsey, Candace was the chief marketing and sales officer for a B2B technology start-up, worked at the US Mission to the United Nations, and worked in brand management for a global personal and household care products company. She frequently publishes on marketing and sales topics as a contributor to Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly, Forbes, and Selling Power.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you got started?

Thank you for having me! I’ve been fortunate to have a wide-ranging career and diverse set of experiences. I have been working in different facets of marketing and sales for over 25 years, including two stints with McKinsey — I’m what we affectionately call a boomerang.

After college, I worked in brand management for Procter & Gamble. It was a wonderful experience with an incredible company and colleagues, though at that point in my life, my goal was to work in International Relations. To facilitate this transition, I went to graduate school to study International Relations, and as I was graduating, I took a number of interviews, one of which was at McKinsey. The interview was such a wonderful experience — I was drawn to the people, the problems we were trying to solve for on behalf of our clients, and the culture. And so, my International Relations career took a detour, and I was hooked! My path initially began in consumer marketing and sales, followed by B2B marketing and sales.

Fast forward to today, and with a few twists and turns in between — I’m now a partner at McKinsey and get the privilege of working with incredible colleagues and clients.

Outside of work, I’m happily married to my college sweetheart and have two amazing children — 19 and 15.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or takeaways you learned from that?

When I first joined McKinsey, it took me about a year to reframe my thinking on the notion of success. Over time, I realized that not only my success — but our team’s success — was measured by the success of our clients. And this was an ‘aha’ moment when I was part of a team that helped a client CMO with a big upcoming board presentation.

We brought facts and analysis to the table, helped shape the narrative, led prep sessions ahead of the board meeting — and it occurred to me that this was a pivotal step in making both the CMO and the business better. It was really powerful to see the CMO thrive and score a significant professional and personal victory. It was a great learning for me to understand early what true ‘success’ means — and that is the success of the client and those around you that is the most gratifying in this profession.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There are so many incredible people I’ve had the privilege of working with and learning from — too many to mention in one interview! But I do have two colleagues and dear friends who’ve been instrumental to my success — Roland John (who is a senior partner), and Jennifer Stanley (a partner), at McKinsey & Company.

Interestingly, my first encounter with Roland was part of my first round of interviews as a graduate student. He was responsible for sparking an immediate interest in joining McKinsey, as he shared stories about the types of work we do and the potential impact we can have on behalf of our clients. As I progressed within the Firm, Roland was a huge champion of mine, especially when it came to looking at alternative paths and/or working part-time for a period in my career.

Next is Jennifer Stanley — I actually recruited her to McKinsey! We’ve had a decades-long friendship and have collaborated on so many projects centered on B2B growth. We have had parallel paths and a lot of commonalities between us — we are both energized by helping B2B companies succeed, have a passion for uncovering cutting edge insights on how B2B customers want to interact and buy, whether through digital or human channels, and ultimately propel each other to new heights both personally and professionally.

On a broader note, it’s so essential to have the right teammates, sponsors, and mentors in your corner — and I know both Roland, Jennifer, and many others are in mine. That gives me a lot of energy and motivation to do my best work.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. Why is purpose such an important aspect of businesses today and what other characteristics define companies that are leading the way in today’s market?

Purpose should serve as an organization’s north star. It matters greatly when you want to coalesce the best people to work on a complex problem. I consider it to be the “special sauce”, which gets people excited about what we do and how to deliver the highest impact. We’ve done extensive research on this, and it’s clear that a unified purpose creates a recognizable sense of mission for all stakeholders.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you tell our readers a bit about what your business does? How do you help people?

McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm. We are committed to helping organizations achieve sustainable, inclusive growth. As part of this, we work with clients across all sectors — private, public, and social — to solve complex problems and look to create positive change for all stakeholders. This means we look to combine strategic and bold thinking with innovative technological solutions to drive long-term innovation and growth! We are committed to helping and emboldening each other and our clients.

Which technological innovation has encroached or disrupted the industries you work with? Can you explain why this has been disruptive?

There are two areas which have fundamentally disrupted businesses from a technology and innovation standpoint.

1. The rise of e-commerce. Today, e-commerce has evolved so rapidly. We saw ten years of digital penetration for B2B companies in a matter of 100 days during COVID-19. Now, customers have the ability to engage in an “always on” environment, customizing and/or co-creating new experiences. This changes the very nature of selling, whereby the best companies don’t need a hard-charging sales culture. Instead, they should look to create a collaborative culture and develop best-in-class offerings that their customers want to learn more about and adopt to solve their problems.
2. The rise of advanced analytics. Advanced analytics give companies the opportunity to create custom content and personalized experiences, as well as a 360-degree view of the customer. Increasingly, companies can differentiate themselves by offering an exceptional customer experience. The data and science behind identifying the journeys that matter most has leaped forward and with it has come a strong focus on this area of analytics across most companies. On a related note, we are also seeing companies increase the metabolism with which they are refreshing customer and consumer journeys and insights. Fresher insights and actions are required to keep up with the rapid changes in customer and consumer behavior.

What did you do to pivot as a result of this disruption?

Organizations should take a customer-first approach. First, they need to understand what their customers want and the nuances with regard to customer expectations. In addition, organizations should properly define their customer segments and run customer journey maps at a granular level and with very high frequency — once every six months for B2B companies, and potentially more often for consumer companies.

The second area to focus on is building an agile operating model and taking a test-and-learn approach. There are key step changes the thinking and the ways by which marketing, digital, IT, and sales collaborate. The goal should be to understand the data, design, and develop a holistic solution — with a flywheel effect for rapid delivery.

Was there a specific “aha moment” that gave you the idea to start this new path? If yes, we’d love to hear the story.

This was based on marketplace dynamics and where the industry was headed! We’ve seen the ‘consumerization’ of B2B buying since 2006 and it’s only accelerated over the last 15 years, especially during COVID-19. We wanted to better understand and forecast against these trends, and so we started doing journey-based research, or what is now very popularly know as our B2B Pulse. Since 2016, we’ve surveyed over 21,000 B2B decision makers around the globe and in major industries, from tech to industrials to finance. Jennifer Stanley, who I mentioned before, and Liz Harrison, another partner colleague, lead this research and it has generated both a lot of buzz and a lot of practical, executional imperatives for companies on how to improve their omnichannel customer interaction models.

So, how are things going with this new direction?

What we’ve observed is that outperformers do three things really well — they orchestrate, integrate, and personalize experiences. And I can break this down at a high level.

Sales professionals need to become “journey orchestrators,” guiding their customers to the channels that, according to their buyer intelligence, are most helpful to specific audiences and purchasing stages.

Integration and agility is so critical, and a hybrid sales model is a natural enabler, since it is more than one channel by definition and integrated by design. In fact, roughly 40 percent of organizations added hybrid sellers to their ranks over the past two years, and this role is set to become the second most prominent B2B sales role over the next three years.

And personalization must be the standard across channels. Providing customers with intuitive interfaces, warm transitions across channels, and speed, transparency and expertise have become major market differentiators.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this pivot?

I’m privileged to work with companies that take calculated risks and strive to be “first-in-industry,” whether it be first in creating a new e-commerce platform, customer engagement platform, and/or co-creating products and solutions with their customers.

What’s been most interesting, especially in this period of time, is that the most innovative companies are not afraid — they test and learn and take calculated risks to achieve long-term growth.

Throughout COVID-19, we have helped a hypergrowth company understand their end-to-end customer experience, which ultimately resulted in building a brand-new digital business and ecommerce platform. As part of this, there were three interesting and important lessons:

1. Co-create new solutions with customers. By bringing the client and customer together, we created a better, more innovative platform.
2. Quantify the value. In large-scale transformations, it’s so important to keep teams laser-focused on the highest value initiatives and understand the worth and opportunity cost of each initiative.
3. Start small. We were able to de-risk these bold, innovative endeavors by starting small, testing, and learning our way through, and creating larger impact over a sustained period of time.

It’s important to note here too that this really comes from a place of trust. To be a true impact partner, trust and growth must be inextricably linked.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during a disruptive period?

There are two areas that are critically important during disruptive periods. The best leaders are:

1. Purpose-driven: Leaders have to be able to rally and unify their teams, building not only diverse skillsets, but championing diverse perspectives as well. Purpose-driven leaders are very clear about who they are and what they stand for, which teams can rally behind.
2. Design-thinkers: Leaders employ customer-back thinking and take a very human approach to designing solutions, with the voice of the customer serving as their compass. They understand how to integrate or build features, functions, and connect technology to the human elements of a product, service, or solution. As such, they have the ability to simultaneously de-risk and take bold risks based on what is best for the customer.

When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?

I would break this down across three areas: teamwork, development, and resilience.

Teamwork: Teamwork is so important, especially during periods of uncertainty. I encourage people to work with others that have adjacent skillsets and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow, both individually and as part of the organization. Organizations that have a learning and development culture can create very engaging experiences for individuals and teams to continuously learn and contribute.

Development: The second focus area is on developing others and meeting people where they are. On an individual level, focus on understanding people’s aspirations and the type of support they need to reach those goals. I can’t stress this enough — leaders have to know their people — their skills, improvement areas, opportunities to pursue, challenges and nature. Once that foundation is set, there are so many ways to create impact.

Resilience: Lastly, I think people of all levels can be taught resilience. And what I mean by this is, there are circumstances that are within and outside of our control — and during periods of uncertainty, while you can’t manage every facet of the situation, you can be prepared, and you can demonstrate fortitude and grit even under the most challenging of circumstances. That is a key muscle to develop.

Is there a number one principle that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?

I have two number one principles! The first is resilience, which we touched on above. The second, which we’ve also discussed, is being relentlessly customer focused. The combination of the two will help you endure and give you clarity of thought and direction even through the most turbulent periods.

Can you share three or four of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make when faced with a disruptive/emerging technology? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?

There are two common mistakes that I see. The first is that there is too much thinking and not enough doing! This especially occurs when it comes to new technology. The issue is, by the time people try and make it perfect, customers or markets have shifted entirely. It’s so critically important to take a test-and-learn approach to your business.

The second common mistake is working in siloes. Cross-functional teams are critical for success, and businesses have to include functional roles like IT, legal, and others as part of the process from the start, so that the best design and thinking goes to market.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

1. This is not a quote, but I don’t believe necessarily in work/life balance or splitting the two apart. There is just your whole life, and this became real for me at two critical junctures. The first was when my husband was in his medical residency, and between both of our jobs, it became difficult to see each other. The decision I gladly made at the time was taking a different role at work in order to travel less and have a more flexible schedule in order to spend time with my husband.
2. The second was when I had children. I took long maternity leaves (at least for that time, almost two decades ago) — ten months with my daughter, and six with my son. I worked part-time for many years in order to spend more time with my family. And while these decisions didn’t put me on the fastest track — they were the right decisions for me at the time and helped me understand how to most effectively balance work, family, and the areas in my life that matter most.

How can our readers further follow your work?

We publish frequently — all of our work can be found on our website!

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!