When local markets go around your central process, it's tempting to see it as a discipline problem. It's usually a signal that the process is too slow.
When a local market goes around the central process, the usual reaction is frustration. They should have waited. They should have followed the rules.
But here's another way to see it. Every workaround is a market telling you the process didn't work for them.
Nobody goes around a system that works
Local teams don't brief their own agency or tweak an asset themselves because they enjoy breaking rules. They do it because they have a launch date that won't move and an approval that hasn't come back.
Faced with a choice between waiting and missing their moment, or acting and hoping nobody minds, most people will act. That's not disloyalty. It's people trying to do their job.
Why it matters more than it looks
Each workaround feels small. Together, they quietly undo the reason you centralised in the first place.
Work made outside the system is more likely to be off-brand or out of date. The centre loses sight of what's actually going out. And the more often it happens, the more normal it becomes. A model built for control ends up with less of it.
Different releases, different pressures
The pressure on local markets looks different depending on the release. With theatrical, each country often has its own date, so local teams are working to their own deadlines and feel every delay at the centre directly. With streaming, everything launches on the same day worldwide, so any local changes have to happen in parallel, not in a line behind everyone else.
Either way, a single queue struggles to serve them all.
Treat workarounds as data
The most useful thing you can do with a workaround is learn from it.
- Map where they happen. The places markets go around the system are the places the system is too slow.
- Ask what they were waiting for. Often it's a small change that never needed central sign-off in the first place.
- Give markets room to move. Templates, pre-approved elements and clear limits let local teams adapt without waiting.
- Keep the big calls at the centre. Brand, master assets and major approvals stay where they belong.
The goal isn't obedience
You can try to stop workarounds with stricter rules. In our experience, that just moves them somewhere harder to see. The better goal is a system that's quicker to use than to avoid. When that happens, the workarounds stop on their own.
"When we look at how work really moves in a global team, the workarounds are often the most honest part of the picture. They show you exactly where people felt stuck. If you design around those points instead of against them, control goes up, not down."
