The Process Revolution: How to Get Everyone On Board (Even When They Don't Report to You)
Getting stakeholders aligned on creative process isn't about authority. It's about empathy.
The "Yes, But" Problem
Last week, I wrote about why creative teams need better process, not less. The response was telling: creative leaders everywhere were nodding along, sharing war stories, and asking the inevitable follow-up question:
"Okay, I'm convinced. But how do I make this happen when half the people I need don't even report to me?"
Ah, there's the real challenge. It's not whether process is valuable; most of us figured that out after our third project meltdown. The challenge is getting everyone else on board when you have influence but not authority.
“Structure is not a constraint on creativity. It’s the scaffolding that supports it.”
— Austin Kleon
Because here's the thing about implementing new creative processes: everyone agrees they're brilliant in theory. In practice? Welcome to the most delicate negotiation of your career.
The resistance you'll encounter isn't malicious. It's predictable: "We already know this information. Why do we need to write it down?" "This is going to slow everything down." "You don't manage me. Why are you telling me what to do?"
And the classic: "We've been doing fine without this."
These aren't just complaints. They're reveals of a fundamental workplace truth: getting people to change how they work when you can't actually make them do it is part psychology, part politics, and entirely dependent on your ability to make their lives better, not harder.
The Cross-Functional Reality
Here's what makes creative process implementation uniquely challenging: you need buy-in from people across departments who each have different priorities, different pressures, and different definitions of success.
Marketing wants speed. Legal wants precision. Executives want options. Account teams want happy clients. Creative wants clarity.
Your process has to serve all of them—or at least not make any of their jobs noticeably harder—while somehow improving the collective output.
You can't force a process that fights your culture.
This is where most process initiatives stall out. Creative leaders approach it like a design problem: build the perfect system and people will naturally want to use it. But organizational change isn't about elegant solutions. It's about human adoption.
Addressing the Real Objections
"They/We already know this stuff."
They do know it—the way you know you should exercise regularly. The knowledge exists; the execution is inconsistent.
I've watched seasoned professionals spend thirty minutes trying to reconstruct decisions from the previous week's meeting. I've seen projects derail because "simple update" meant different things to different people.
The value isn't in capturing information people already possess. It's in making that information consistently accessible when anyone on the team needs it.
"This will slow us down."
Translation: "I'm already juggling more priorities than I can handle, and this sounds like additional overhead."
This objection kills more process initiatives than any other because it's rooted in legitimate concern. Everyone is already busy. Nobody wants more administrative burden.
Your response can't be theoretical. It has to be demonstrable. Pick one workflow improvement that saves time immediately. A brief template that eliminates scope clarification emails, a feedback form that cuts revision cycles. Prove the value before you ask for broader adoption.
"You don't manage me."
This is rarely about organizational hierarchy. It's about trust and respect.
When someone raises this objection, they're signaling: "I don't believe you understand my constraints, my priorities, or what success looks like from my perspective."
You can't solve this with org charts or executive mandates. You solve it by demonstrating that you've done the work to understand their world and that your proposed process makes their job easier, not harder.
“Most of the time, people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Securing Executive Support That Matters
Leadership lip service kills more process initiatives than outright opposition.
The "sounds great, keep me posted" response feels like support, but it's really just a polite way of saying you're on your own. Sometimes they’ll even say that they want you to just “work it out,” and that rarely works out. And, if you have to work across leadership teams, that can immediately double the level of difficulty, taking you from a red ski trail (intermediate) to a black double diamond (the hardest).
What you need is active, visible advocacy; executives who reference your frameworks in their own feedback, who ask about process outputs in reviews, who make participation an expectation rather than a suggestion.
But here's the key: they need to understand what they're advocating for and why it makes their job easier, too.
Don't just ask for support. Show them how consistent creative processes reduce the number of times they have to intervene in project escalations. Demonstrate how clear briefs and feedback protocols mean fewer meetings where they're asked to referee creative disagreements.
Make it personal. Make it valuable. Make it obvious.
Bringing People Along for the Journey
The most successful process implementations I've seen didn't impose change. They invited collaboration.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
— African Proverb
Instead of: "Here's the new brief template you need to use." Try: "We're seeing projects get stuck in revision cycles. What information would help you give better feedback faster?"
Instead of: "Legal needs to review everything within 48 hours." Try: "What would you need to see upfront to make legal review more efficient?"
People support what they help create. Give them a voice in designing the solution and they'll have ownership in making it work.
Measuring What Matters
You can't improve what you don't measure. But most creative teams measure the wrong things.
Don't just count projects completed. Measure:
Revision rounds per project (Are we getting it right faster?)
Time from brief to final delivery (Are we actually more efficient?)
Stakeholder satisfaction scores (How do people feel about working together?)
After every major project, send a quick survey to everyone involved. Ask simple questions:
How clear was the initial brief?
How useful was the feedback you received?
What would have made this project smoother?
The patterns will tell you where your process is working and where it needs work.
Reading the Room (And the Culture)
Here's something most process guides won't tell you: you can't force a process that fights your culture.
If your organization values speed over thoroughness, your process needs to be lightweight and flexible. If your culture is consensus-driven, your process needs built-in collaboration points. If your leadership style is top-down, your process needs clear authority structures.
“Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end.”
— Robin Sharma
I've seen brilliant process frameworks fail because they required cultural shifts the organization wasn't ready to make. The process wasn't wrong. The timing was.
The Service Industry Reality
Remember: we're not just producing assets. We're managing relationships.
Every interaction shapes how people feel about working with the creative team. Every brief, every feedback session, every revision cycle is an opportunity to build trust or erode it.
Your process needs to account for this. It's not just about efficiency. It's about creating experiences that make people want to collaborate with you again.
The Long Game
Change is hard. Implementing new creative processes isn't a sprint. It's a cultural shift disguised as a workflow improvement.
Start small. Prove value. Build trust. Then expand.
The goal isn't to get everyone to follow your process perfectly. The goal is to get everyone aligned around shared standards that make the work better.
Because at the end of the day, great creative work doesn't happen in isolation. It happens when smart people can collaborate effectively.
And that's exactly what good process makes possible.
What's been your experience implementing new processes? What resistance have you encountered and how did you overcome it? I'd love to hear your war stories.