In his presentation Kevin Blair, recruitment director EMEA, Oracle, said the best approach was to act first and get buy-in later. “We have a policy of getting on with it,” he said. “If you are getting results, then getting management buy-in is much easier.”

However, Essie Russell, global talent research & acquisition director at Diageo, said that no one approach worked everywhere, that it needed to be tailored to individual companies’ styles and cultures.

Russell said that at Microsoft, where she previously worked and where the culture valued a logical approach, “the most important thing” was having good data to support your business case.

However, she said that when she tried the same approach at FMCG firm Diageo, she found that “the same rules didn’t apply”.

Russell said that when she tried this “binary approach” at Diageo it didn’t work.

She explained that as an FMCG firm, whose products include iconic brands such as Guinness that uses advertising to build bonds with customers, it was more effective to persuade others by telling a story and “connecting on an emotional level”.