Marissa Barcza, Head of Customer Experience Center of Excellence at Adobe
Marissa leads the Customer Experience Center of Excellence at Adobe with past roles in Customer Success management, business operations, and Retail consulting. Driven by her passion for helping customers create value and achieve business goals, she takes pride in providing outstanding and seamless experiences at each step of their journey: with the product, during conversations with the team, and with a variety of content available. Additionally, Marissa is a recognized leader in her community, with past experiences serving on the Board of the Austin Humane Society and as President of the local Customer Success community.
Q: Why do you choose to spend your time mentoring others?
A: First and foremost, I want to pay it forward. I'm incredibly lucky that I've had so many amazing mentors in the past and present, and I find that it's important for me to be able to pay it forward while sharing advice that I've gotten along the way.
As I've progressed in my career, I've had pivotal moments and felt alone. Since being more open about offering people advice and mentorship, I've learned that my experience is not that unique. A lot of people go through these pivotal moments, and they also feel very alone. Being a mentor, I can help people feel less alone in that experience.
I also choose to be a mentor because I want to help close the salary gap. It's not closing fast enough, and I think it's a big challenge and a big problem. It comes down to every single individual having the power and the confidence to have negotiations about their salary to help close that gap. It's a passion of mine because I think too often people, especially women, aren't willing to ask for more. Mentorship is about the nice fuzzies to help people by listening, but I'm passionate about encouraging people to ask for more and get paid their value, paid their worth.
Q: What do you personally gain from mentoring?
A: I get inspired. It's so cool to see what the next generation in the workforce is thinking, doing, and feeling. Not that all my mentees are of the next generation, by any means, but all the great ideas and experiences that others have shared are inspirational for me.
I've also found that being a mentor is important for me in a more selfish kind of way, in that it helps broaden my network. Someone long ago told me to be very mindful of how I build that coalition of support above me, below me, and across in my career, so that I have a broad network to tap on if and when I need it, such as writing a LinkedIn recommendation for me. Mentoring is a way for me to help broaden my network “across” and “below.” That's another reason why I like being a mentor.
Q: To what do you attribute your success?
A: I attribute a lot of my success to leading with kindness, both toward others and toward myself. With others, I try to always assume the best. I listen. I ask questions to try and understand what others are trying to achieve. I focus on solutions so everyone can achieve our goals with what we're trying to do.
On the flip side, I also focus on showing kindness towards myself. Too often we are plagued with self-doubt, and we feel like we're not doing a good job. I try to trust my instincts, to stand up for what I know and what I deserve, but also show myself grace. If I do make a mistake, which we all do, I try and learn from it, move forward, and commit to doing better next time. I also make sure that I'm communicating with peers, colleagues, and leaders if they were affected by my mistake to acknowledge it and share ways I’m moving on from it.
Another thing that has helped me succeed is that I'm forthright with praise, especially in the workplace. For example, copying someone's manager on an email, saying something simple, such as, "You've done a really good job with this," or "I liked the point you brought up at that meeting. Thank you for calling that out," or "Thank you for supporting me when I spoke up about that topic in a meeting." Being more public and explicit with praise can be helpful, and I think it causes others to pick that habit up. I know how rewarding it can be when I get an email from someone who says, "Thank you for doing that for me.”
Q: What does good mentoring look like to you?
A: To be a good mentor, I find it’s important to be open to understand what the mentee is looking for in the relationship. Understanding comes from listening, and you have to actively listen to understand. To use my dad's advice from my entire life: “Seek to understand, then be understood.” From the beginning of the mentoring relationship, it’s important to establish trust. Let the mentee know that your relationship is a safe space and that they can trust you to guide them.
In addition, part of good mentoring is to have a mentor that doesn't work at the same company that you work at to reinforce that safe space aspect. Too often we're paired with a mentee or mentor in our own company, but that inherently makes for a bit of a conflict with your mentorship relationship. That way, when you are listening, they're being authentic and honest with themselves. I have no skin in the game other than helping them get to where they want to be, and I do my best to help them be honest about what that destination is.
Q: How has mentoring impacted your own journey?
A: I wouldn't be here without the advice of so many. And I'd like to highlight that many people have mentored me without having that title. Some pieces of advice that I've gotten that have helped me from my mentors:
1. Be clear about what you want. It's especially true for compensation and promotions, but in general, it's important to be clear about what it is you want so you can be clear in the ask. You can ask them directly if they support you: "Do you support me in this pursuit?". Do this early; a year before it's supposed to happen, if possible. If your lead says they don’t support you, take that feedback to learn and show your growth to gain their support longer-term. And then make sure that you're still aligned, that you're still getting that support. It's helped me immensely in my career.
2. It doesn't have to be all-in at work all the time, and it's okay to say “this year or this week or this month, and I'm going to be all-in at home, and I need to adjust my expectations at work.” And once again, be clear with leadership to say, "I just can't hit all of these things. It's too much because I have these other elements going on at home." A few years ago, I took a three-month sabbatical at work. I had to work hard to get it approved. It was around the time that I was getting married, moving across the country. My husband was quitting his job to go to school. We had a lot going on and I just knew I couldn't show up fully at work, and so I needed to ask for that support. I had earned it by working extra hard and consistently delivering so leadership had confidence that I needed it. Knowing that I didn't have to be all-in-all the time at work, knowing that my personal life needed me full time at that moment made all the difference.
Q: What advice would you give to someone interested in becoming a mentor?
A: I believe everyone can be and is a mentor every day. The title is nice to have, but it doesn't change anything. We're all helping each other and mentoring each other in every interaction we have. With that said, here are three things that I recommend to new mentors:
1. Do your homework in advance of meetings. Always plan an agenda. Mentees oftentimes come to a meeting and think their mentor just tells them what to do and they go off and do it. Having an agenda with the questions that are associated with what they should focus on achieving during that meeting or session is important.
2. Review notes from your last session. Don’t come in and ask the same things again or worse, forget what was discussed. If your mentee went to an important interview since you spoke last, ask them how it went. Show that you're listening and focused on helping them, and not just asking them to repeat the same things over and over.
3. Keep your mentee accountable. Your mentee must do the heavy lifting. I can prepare an agenda and some questions, but the mentee is the one who should be doing the work. You can help make sure that they're doing it. Get that update via email before your session so that you can have a productive dialogue going in.
Q: Why do you choose to mentor with Ceresa?
A: Mentoring is a skill and needs an approach that works. I love the structured process that Ceresa provides, both for the mentee and the mentor. You have provided so much content and collateral, like the Powerful Questions. I use it often, even at work. I also love that mentoring with Ceresa allows me to work with someone outside of my own company.
And then lastly, I love all the mentor events. It's been so great to expand my network amongst the people who are also mentors. The content is always helpful in different ways. It's not just a take; it's very much a give and take, which I think is appreciated by me and many others.
Mentorship: integral to the Ceresa whole-person approach
At Ceresa, mentorship is an integral part of our leadership development process. The mentor-mentee relationship is a key component in providing the structure, and at the same time fluidity, necessary to facilitate pointed leadership and career growth for both the participant and the mentor.