In order for stakeholders to use personas, they have to believe in them, feel invested, and have ownership over them. I've done this a few times and no matter

In order for stakeholders to use personas, they have to believe in them, feel invested, and have ownership over them. I've done this a few times and no matter how convinced I was it was, in the end, pure fantasy. The most successful personas are created with involvement from their end users. I don't know what they mean by success: I tried to use personas to understand customers I didn't have.