Sept. 22, 2024

Embracing Diversity with Toby Milden Turning Challenges into Change

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In this compelling episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, host Curveball is joined by Toby Mildon, a certified executive coach and diversity and inclusion expert. Diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, Toby has faced various forms of discrimination, which fueled his passion for creating inclusive environments in both the business world and everyday life.
Toby shares his journey from working in IT project management to becoming a diversity and inclusion manager at prominent organizations like the BBC and Deloitte. Learn about his personal experiences with prejudice and exclusion, and how inclusive managers helped him thrive. Toby also discusses the significant advancements in treatments for spinal muscular atrophy and how they are changing lives.
Dive deep into the benefits of diversity and inclusion for brand innovation and productivity, and discover Toby's frameworks for implementing effective diversity and inclusion strategies in the workplace. Toby also talks about his books, "Inclusive Growth" and "Building Inclusivity," which offer invaluable insights and practical steps for fostering inclusive cultures.
Don't miss Toby's advice for leaders looking to champion diversity and inclusion in their organizations, and hear about the exciting projects he's working on, including AI-driven tools for analyzing diversity data.
If you would like to be a podcast guest please sign up at podmatch.com

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> Curtis Jackson>Welcome, to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. if you believe you can achieve Chee Chee, welcome to the living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today we're going to be talking about diversity and inclusion as I am joined by Arthur certified executive coach and diversity and inclusion expert Toby Milton.

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> Curtis Jackson>growing up, Toby was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disease. So he went through all his time facing different discriminations because of his disability and other things. I'll let him talk about the other things.

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> Curtis Jackson>And so that's why he decided to get into the diversity and inclusion field and show that everybody needs to be made to feel safe and included in the business world and in life.

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> Curtis Jackson>So, Toby, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Toby Milden>You're welcome. Thanks for inviting me along.

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> Curtis Jackson>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Toby Milden>Yeah. So, I live in the UK, in the north of England.

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> Toby Milden>I run my own diversity and inclusion consultancy, which I have for the last five years. but before that, I was an in house diversity and inclusion manager for the BBC and Deloitte, the big accountancy firm. But I got into diversity and inclusion halfway through my career. I actually spent the first half of my career working in IT project management. So when I left university, I was an IT consultant for Accenture.

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> Toby Milden>I moved into healthcare technology, implementing software into hospitals, and I ended up at the BBC as a technical project manager, working on, redeveloping the news website, developing the BBC sounds app and, numerous accessibility projects. but as you said in your introduction, I've got lived experience of disability.

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> Toby Milden>So I was born with a rare neuromuscular disability called spinal muscular atrophy. And so I've had my own experiences of prejudice and exclusion because of my disability. I've also had some really good examples of working with inclusive managers who have helped me get into the workplace and succeed in the workplace. so, yeah, that's in a nutshell, a bit about me.

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> Curtis Jackson>So tell the listeners about your neuromuscular disease. Tell us what it is and how it affects you.

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> Toby Milden>Yeah, so it's called spinal muscular atrophy, basically. to kind of simplify it for everybody. the nerve, the messages travel down my nerves, from my brain, but the connector at the nerve ending into the muscles is faulty.

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> Toby Milden>So the signal that gets through to the muscles is very weak compared to people that don't have the condition. And therefore my muscles atrophy, they get weaker over time, and that means that I'm a, ah, full time wheelchair user, that I have 24 hours care.

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> Toby Milden>it has progressed. I was a lot stronger when I was younger, than I am now.

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> Toby Milden>When I was a teenager, I was able to lift my arms over my head, but now I'm not able to feed myself, so I have to have assistance, to do that. It's a very rare condition in the UK. There's only about 1500 people living with the condition, one in 40 of the UK population, carry the defective gene, that causes the condition. You then have to have two people get together when they make a baby, with the defective gene to produce a child with SMA. But there's only a one in four chance that their baby would have the condition, and so, therefore, that's why it's so, so rare. but actually that we've had some significant scientific advancements over the last decade, there's now about three drugs on the market that can really help people with the condition. So in an ideal world, it would either slow down progression or make things better. one of the drugs is actually designed for babies. So if, a baby is diagnosed at a very young age, hopefully as close to birth as possible, and is administered one of these drugs, then they could, grow up with mild symptoms of the condition.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, well, discuss, talk about how inclusivity and diversity can contribute to, brand innovation and productivity and business.

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> Toby Milden>Yeah.

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> Toby Milden>so there's lots of research out there, both in the academic world and the business world, about the benefits and advantages of having an inclusive culture in your company. We know that diverse teams are better at making decisions. They are, better at, innovating and creativity. They are, better at, building relationships with your customers because they can understand your diverse customer base. They can better anticipate the needs and requirements of your customers and therefore deliver a better customer service.

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> Toby Milden>So there are many, many benefits to having a diverse workforce, but diversity is really the output of, laying some solid foundations first. Unfortunately, we don't live in a fair society and our workplaces often reflect those inequalities. So we need to make sure that we are providing equity, for the people in an organization. And what I mean by equity is understanding that we are nothing, that we are not all starting at the same point, that we each individually need individual support and resources in order to create a level playing field, in order to create equality, so that everybody has the same opportunity to really thrive and perform at their best.

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> Toby Milden>So we have to create this solid foundation of equity and equality, and then really have a focus on creating a culture of belonging and respect and inclusion within an organization, and when we do these foundational level improvements, that's when it's much easier for us as an employer to attract and recruit and retain a diverse workforce.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, so you're also an author, so tell the listeners about your books and tell them where to get them and what we can expect when we read them.

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> Toby Milden>Yes. My first book that I wrote is called, inclusive growth. And I wrote the book because I'd been working in big companies like the BBC and Deloitte. I had lots of experience of what good practice looked like and some of the mistakes that I had made or I seen being made that other company that I felt other diversity and inclusion practitioners should avoid. and I've got a fantastic network of diversity and inclusion leaders and practitioners that I've learned from. And I wanted to codify what good practice looked like somehow. So I created this framework, which I call the inclusive growth model, and essentially it's seven best practices on how to implement a diversity and inclusion well in an organization and what good looks like. And I.

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> Toby Milden>The reason why I called it inclusive growth was because I noticed that a lot of senior leaders didn't quite understand why diversity and inclusion was so strategically important to the business. They often treated it as a bit like a box ticking exercise or marketing activity. A lot of window dressing actions were happening, but they really weren't thinking about how if they have an inclusive growth, sorry, an inclusive culture, it would actually help their business grow and prosper. And that's why I called it inclusive growth. I wanted to try and reposition diversity and inclusion in the eyes of senior leaders so that they could understand that it was actually good for business. It actually helped a business prosper and thrive if they did it well.

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> Toby Milden>and then my second book, which came out most recently, is called building inclusivity.

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> Toby Milden>And it's a lot more of a practical handbook because I had some really positive feedback from the first book.

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> Toby Milden>people said it was really inspirational. It helped them understand what good should look like. But it doesn't tell you what to actually do. It doesn't tell you actually how to implement it in your business.

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> Toby Milden>So, through the last five years experience of working with over 100 different clients spanning 16 different industries or so, I've now got some proven methodologies for actually implementing it in an organization. So I created another framework called the inclusivity flywheel. and this is very much kind of a framework for actually how to go about implementing it in your business.

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> Curtis Jackson>So what advice would you give a leader or a company who came to you and said, hey, Toby, we heard about your DNI frameworks and we think that's important. what do we need to do to implement this and make this, sustainable, so we can help our company grow?

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> Toby Milden>So if an organization is just starting out on their divestiture inclusion journey, I would recommend starting at the beginning of the inclusivity flywheel, which is about, raising awareness, first of all, across your organization, because there is a lot of fear and concern about talking about diversity. People don't want to say the wrong things. They don't want to cause offense, so they tend to, err on the side of caution. They don't have those brave, bold conversations that we should be having about diversity and inclusion within the workplace. So we need to kind of raise awareness so that we have a shared understanding and a shared vocabulary across the business. and also so that we're normalizing the topic so that we make it less scary for people. and then we have to swiftly move on to the next phase of the flywheel, which is engaging. And this is about engaging your senior leadership team because the change for more inclusivity has to be driven from the top of the business. senior leaders need to be walking the talk, they need to be demonstrating inclusive leadership behaviours. They need to be acting as positive role models and they have to be really, really clear on the why. loads of senior leaders can go out there and they can read the four or five McKinsey reports about the benefits of divesting inclusion, but they have to rethink about, well, why is it important to their particular unique business or industry? because taking a cookie cutter approach just doesn't cut it. you have to really hone in on your personal reason why, and develop your own business case and get real senior leadership team driving this agenda from the top of the business.

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> Curtis Jackson>So what do you see happening in the future in regards to work and diversity and inclusivity?

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> Toby Milden>I think there's so much coming down the line.

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> Toby Milden>there's definitely increased interest in diversity inclusion in companies in general. I think companies are waking up to the fact that we do live in diverse societies, that unfortunately we do live in societies with a lot of inequality as well.

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> Toby Milden>and those companies that are responsible, they've got a real, social agenda that they're thinking about things like the environment, as well. They believe it's the right thing to do. They understand that they have to create within the four walls of their business. They have to create the environment where we're reducing inequalities.

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> Toby Milden>and that's actually one of the United nations sustainability goals around reducing, inequalities and creating fair employment for everybody. and those advanced employers are really, they understand that purpose or that mission. but there's a lot of outside forces that are influencing diversity inclusion in companies that they have to be ready to address.

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> Toby Milden>there's a hell of a lot of political rhetoric, that's creating more division than unity, both in the UK and the US, through different, political parties and campaigns, we are seeing we're going to have a massive shift when it comes to artificial intelligence and machine learning.

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> Toby Milden>There are some concerns around bias that AI is being programmed with, but, I think AI and machine learning actually presents huge opportunities for us. but we just need to make sure that AI benefits everybody, and not just the privileged few, and senior leaders. If they're going to be running successful businesses and growing successful businesses in the future, they really need to be thinking about the kind of positive culture that they want to create in their business because it is so hard to find top talent. recruitment is really, really difficult. the power really is in the hands of, the job applicant or the candidate, particularly with younger people, younger people, the generation Z and, the new generations coming through. They've got a lot more of a.

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> Toby Milden>A focus on, society, fairness, equality, the environment. They are actively choosing companies that are aligned with their values.

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> Toby Milden>And so if a company cannot demonstrate that they are in alignment with the values of the younger generations coming through into the workforce now, then they're really missing out on that, on that potential talent pool.

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> Curtis Jackson>Tell us about any current or upcoming projects that you're working on that the listeners need to be aware of.

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> Toby Milden>So all of the work that I do is, bespoke to our clients. So we've got some really exciting projects on the go with various clients where we're doing anything from helping an organization create its diversity and inclusion strategy after getting data so that we can take targeted action where it's most needed. I'm working with one client on training their hiring managers on how to do recruitment well and how to do recruitment, inclusively. I speak at a lot of conferences and events just to raise awareness and get senior leaders engaged in the topic of EDI. So there's lots of exciting work aside, that there's lots of research and development that we're doing. So I'm working with the university in the UK where we are, building some software using artificial intelligence to automatically analyze diversity inclusion data. So a company will be able to upload, diversity demographic data and answers, to inclusion questions that they ask their staff. And the AI will automatically analyze that data and give them the results back to them within a matter of like three or 4 seconds. at the moment, it takes about three or four days to analyze, a large set of data and present results back to a senior leadership team. But the AI will help us do it in a matter of minutes.

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> Curtis Jackson>Well, so everybody can keep up with everything that you're up to. Throw out your contact info.

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> Toby Milden>So the best place to connect with me is on LinkedIn. So just search for Toby Milden on LinkedIn. Connect with me, drop me a message. also my website has got lots of information. I've got a resources page on my website with details of my own podcast, the inclusive growth show and my book. And my website is www dot Milden dot co dot Uk.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, well, let the listeners know about your podcast. Let them know where they can hear it and wherever, what they can expect when they listen to it.

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> Toby Milden>So the podcast is available on, all of the great podcasting platforms. most people listen to it on Apple podcasts or Spotify.

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> Toby Milden>and it's not me rambling on.

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> Toby Milden>I interview really interesting thought leaders and business leaders around diversity inclusion.

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> Toby Milden>excuse the pun, but we have a very diverse set of guests and interviews. We've talked about everything from the menopause in workplace to ex offender rehabilitation in the workforce, to creating cultures of respect and belonging, to digital and website accessibility. So there's lots of interesting topics on there and something that will inspire anybody who listens.

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> Curtis Jackson>Okay, Milton Co UK, close us out with some final thoughts.

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> Curtis Jackson>Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Toby Milden>My closing thought would be that if you are really passionate about implementing diversity and inclusion in your own organisation, really, try to spend time with your senior leadership team and get them to connect with the why so you could share with them resources that could be books, websites, blogs, podcasts to help them educate them to understand the why. Or maybe run a workshop with them to help them really understand their unique why and the business case.

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> Curtis Jackson>All right, ladies and gentlemen, Milden, co dot UK. Please be sure to follow rate review share this episode to as many people as possible. Jump on your favorite podcast app. Leave us a review. Give us a follow. If you have any guests or suggestion topics, Curtis Jackson, 1978 t.net is the place to send them. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Toby, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining us.

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> Toby Milden>You're welcome. Thank you.

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> Curtis Jackson>For more information on the living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurveball.com.

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> Curtis Jackson>until next time, stay focused on living the dream.

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> Toby Milden>Dream.