The Invisible Mentor

The Invisible Mentor Interviews Alex Todd

April 6th, 2010 |

This week I present Alex Todd to you in The Invisible Mentor series of interviews. I have known Alex for several years, we were Board of Directors for the Strategic Leadership Forum. You will meet people that you would not usually meet and you can get to know them a bit by their responses to the interview questions. From the language they use you get a sense of their personalities. Alex is very passionate about what he does and that shines through his answers. Though the people profiled on this blog may not be from your industry there are many lessons that you can learn from them.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

At heart, I am an innovator and architect. Professionally, I am on my 8th career, oscillating between working for companies and entrepreneurial ventures in financial services and information technology, mostly in business to business commercial relationships. For the past 7 years, after leaving IBM, I have been engaged in activities to help establish Trust Enablement as a valid management innovation, with a strategic focus on precipitating transformations in corporate governance practices. To date I have written numerous articles and papers and delivered countless presentations on these and related topics. I am very excited that in September 2010, Wiley in the U.S. will publish my chapter on corporate governance best practices in their new finance textbook, which will allow me to officially refer to myself as a published author. The next step will have to be writing a complete book.

What’s a typical day like for you?

On the weekday mornings that I don’t exercise. I wake up about 7am and begin my day by going down to my basement home office to check e-mail. I then make coffee and have cereal for breakfast. Depending on whether I have meetings that morning, I may spend the morning completing some business tasks before showering and getting dressed. Now that the weather is improving, I will likely work in my pajamas most of the morning to get some work accomplished before rewarding myself with a 1 hour bike ride mid-day, in order to get in shape for the Ride for Heart and The Ride to Conquer Cancer that take place in June. Throughout the week I generally leave at least a couple of full days to work in my office without meetings and try to schedule a few days with multiple events and meetings.

How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

When you choose the life of an entrepreneur, your survival is at stake. That’s a big daily motivator. I am always exploring ways to be more relevant and add more value. However, my motivation to remain an entrepreneur comes from some deep-seated need to achieve my potential by striving to realize new possibilities, because if I don’t do it, I don’t believe anybody will. Right now I see a possibility to restore trust in corporate governance practices and help management adopt trust enabling business practices that improve overall business performance, as well as the prosperity and well-being of corporate stakeholders. Although my primary motivation is my legacy, I am also motivated to generate sufficient income and accumulate sufficient capital to live an empowered and fulfilled life with my family.

If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

I may have pursued law rather than accounting as a career. If I had, chances are I still would not have had a traditional career in law, but would have been involved in ventures to help make improvements to corporate law, which may have led me close to where I am today; focused on transforming corporate governance practices.

What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

I would have to say it is discovering a couple of significant initiatives to improve trust in business, both of which are based in the United States. One is an attempt to measure the trustworthiness of American companies and recognize their successes, while the other attempts to restore trust by transforming corporate governance practices. These initiatives both validate my work to date and provide a legitimate context for my business value propositions.

What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?

I would have to say it is the change in consciousness of business leaders and their corporate stakeholders. Ten years ago, to suggest that business has any legitimate mandate to pursue any other business-related objectives other than profit maximization would have been sacrilegious in North America. Today, although still controversial, it is considered to be an acceptable topic for management and board meetings. The catastrophic business and economic collapses of the past decade, combined with newly empowered generations of Internet users have created a paradigm shift in business expectations and practices.

What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?

First and foremost is my ability to generate sufficient cash flow to remain in business. The second is gaining sufficient support by influential industry insiders for my value propositions. The third would have to be my ability to identify and courageously commit to high value business opportunities. To sustain cash flows, I am accepting a variety of non-strategic work assignments. To gain support, I am building credibility through writing, cultivating relationships by engaging key people in providing input to various business initiatives, and establishing new relationships through credible introductions. To identify high value business opportunities, I am constantly experimenting with new ideas and looking for traction. I suspect that I will have to commit to the first viable opportunity, in the very least to serve as an anchor for future opportunities. To net it out, in all likelihood, my most critical success factor will be establishing the right business partnership to drive the venture.

What’s unique about the service that you provide?

Our unique value proposition is our universal Trust Enablement method for diagnosing and designing conditions for trust in any area of business. We also have unique ways of diagnosing and designing “aspirational corporate governance” practices and structures, as well as a unique model for identifying corporate governance styles and associating them with specific business performance metrics.

What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

I would say that I have a broader perspective that considers the fuller complexity of business issues. For example, rather than simply talking about managing risk, which is a defensive posture intended to protect what you have, I also emphasize enabling trust, which is an offensive posture intended to help you get what you want. You could call it, to borrow Roger Martin’s (Dean of the Rotman School of Management) term, “integrative thinking”.

Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it.

A big challenge I had when starting out on my own was that people knew me as being Alex, the information security and PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) guy from IBM, essentially my brand was an IT consultant, but my new business was enabling trust for business stakeholders, which had little to do with IT or information security. Whenever I would use the term “trust” people would hear “security”. It took me more than two years to begin to disassociate myself from my information security background and be seen as the trust guy. This involved a tedious and persistent process of repeating more refined versions of the same trust message and seizing all opportunities to write and present about trust in various areas of business, usually areas I know nothing about. I forced myself to accept all such challenges, no matter how difficult, believing that somehow I would be able to overcome them. My biggest such test was when I was invited to present a paper on corporate governance at a university doctoral consortium with three weeks advance notice. This was particularly challenging because at the time I knew nothing about corporate governance and I had never written a postgraduate academic paper. After working frantically day and night to research the topic and develop my trust enabled corporate governance thesis, I successfully presented a 30,000 word, 92- page document with 71 source citations. That was intense. But it was worth it, because had I not accepted that challenge, I would not have been able to apply Trust Enablement to the strategically most important area of business for affecting management transformation, the corporate board of directors. My successful transition from information security consultant to internationally published author on corporate governance – two polar opposite ends of the business spectrum – is really difficult to comprehend. It is even more difficult for the corporate governance community to accept as being credible.

What lessons did you learn in the process?

Anything is possible with enough passion, courage, determination, commitment and willingness to sacrifice. There is also a huge price to pay for an uncertain outcome. You have to be able to completely embrace uncertainty and blindly believe you will eventually achieve your goals.

Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

I am still waiting for my big break. However, I have had a few small, but very significant ones along the way. For example, I was invited to contribute my book chapter completely out of the blue.

Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

I would have to say that my biggest failures were not being able to keep a job for long enough to develop a career. This has forced me to explore non-traditional paths and has allowed me to achieve some incredible feats. For example, in 1990, after losing my job with Lotus Development Corporation and my market representation contract with Quarterdeck, I created the world’s first, BYTE Magazine recognized do-what-I-mean time and information planner software that interpreted and automatically acted on information entered in plain English, and I sold it online on CompuServe, 6 years before the Internet.

What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

My biggest disappointments to date have been not being able to capitalize on my innovations. The resulting financial and career pressures have caused much personal and family pain and stress. I guess I am not doing anything to prevent it from recurring, as it is happening right now. Instead, I am focused on exploring and exploiting all avenues that have the potential to lead me to my goals. I know I am in it for the long run, so am pacing myself to make it to the elusive finish line.

What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

It didn’t seem like a tough decision, but it was certainly a life-altering one. After IBM, I decided that I would not seek another job, but would find a way to be self-employed by creating a business. It seemed like a logical strategy at the time. However, the execution of the strategy has been the toughest part. It has caused us to suspend our lifestyle aspirations for too many years.

What are three events that helped to shape your life?

Living in three different countries by the age of 10, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Canada, two of which were subsequently bombed by the Americans.
Pursuing a career in public accounting upon graduating from university.
Marrying my wife.

What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

I would have to say I am most proud of having been able to envision new possibilities and make significant accomplishments on the road to realizing them. I have done this in several areas, but most notably by developing my software in 1990 and more recently by developing and validating my Trust Enablement framework. I hope to be able to trump these accomplishments in the coming years.

How did mentors influence your life?

I don’t believe I have ever had any mentors. I wish I did. I am still looking for them. I do however have many friends and colleagues who generously provide me with feedback. However, I do not consider them my mentors.

Alex Todd Talks About Mentors

Alex Talks About Mentors from Avil Beckford on Vimeo.

As an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

I wish I had someone I looked up to who would have been my mentor, because success is highly improbably without the willing cooperation of others. My advice is to build a supportive network and seek mentors you admire who can help you travel the paths they have taken.

What are five takeaways from Alex’s interview?

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The Invisible Mentor Interviews Alex Todd

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