Impact without the Despair: Navigating Complexity with Intent

Niall O’Kelly at UXDX EMEA. Video: https://youtu.be/AniRT4EuZgc

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Navigating the chaos of large organizations

[00:00:09] Host: Nice. I love it. Good luck.

[00:00:14] Niall: Thanks. Hello, I'm Niall, thanks for the setup. I lead design for experience enablement at Adidas. It sounds strange, but what it means in practice is I work across our global platforms and teams and markets to simplify and automate, where we can, our content workflows, and bring personalized consumer experiences to life around the world. And it is as cool as it sounds, to be honest with you. It's a privilege to work on such visible, complex and impactful initiatives with my team and colleagues in all these different places around the world, and shout out to the ones who are watching now.

[00:00:49] Today I don't want to talk about that as much, but more about some of the things I've learned along the way trying to do it. Not the craft of how to solve these types of problems, but more critically, how to make your work matter inside large organizations. Put another way, how to navigate the chaos. Because some days, working in big organizations feels like you're building a rocket ship while you're riding on it, while it's on fire. You're supposed to just rock on and hit your KPIs and keep smiling.

[00:01:21] But the way it feels, that's normal. Because design isn't just about making screens, it's about making decisions. Every design move you make, every flow, every interaction, every word, is a choice about what matters. And surviving and influencing inside complexity works exactly the same way. It's about the choices that you make, the focus that you hold, and the trust that you build. That's what I want to talk about today: how do you create impact without creating the despair that can come with it?

[00:01:54] Because you know how it goes. You're delivering great work. The feedback is strong, the data are looking good, maybe you're even proud of the solution. But inside the organization, nothing's moving. And it's usually not because your work isn't good enough. It's because the systems move slower than any individual can. Organizations naturally stretch, and they get messy when leadership sets these bold targets and strategies, and the biggest ideas move faster than the people, processes and tools needed to deliver them.

[00:02:26] So chaos doesn't necessarily mean dysfunction. More often, it's ambition trying to find the right structure. And when you're lucky enough to work in these sorts of complex environments, that sense of chaos is part of the deal. Our task isn't to fix the chaos. You can't. It's more to navigate through it with intent, engaging with it and avoiding the temptation to just keep your head down and stay busy with your own tasks. Because sometimes that can feel like the right thing to do. It's safe, it's tangible, you feel like you're doing stuff, it might even feel important. But being busy usually doesn't mean that you're moving the system.

Focus, alignment and treating stakeholders like users

[00:03:03] Your impact comes from applying focus and effort where it counts, in the right places, with the right people. In complex topics and organizations, your focus then isn't just a personal skill, it's a political choice. Effort without visibility doesn't build trust or momentum. So you ask: is the work you're doing going to be impactful? Will the right people see it? It's not just strategic thinking, it's survival thinking. Inside complexity, focus is a leadership move. Where you pay attention, others start to pay attention to, and that's how you start to create momentum, and how you design where that attention flows.

[00:03:46] Because even on great teams, people will drift apart. We assume clarity based on shared understanding and goals, but often those agreements haven't been made explicit, and without shared alignment, teams fill the vacuum. They interpret goals based on their context, their expertise, their targets. Within challenging topics and complex organizations, those assumptions do not scale, and so they will inevitably block your momentum. So alignment isn't a one-time event, "we had that meeting that one time." It's an ongoing design activity.

[00:04:21] We spent years figuring out how to do this and pushing for that seat at the table. Now that we're there, we think, "Great, we did it," and we fall into the trap of thinking that the table gets us. That just by being in the room, our solutions will be agreed on, and we just have to focus on pushing our ideas. But of course, that just isn't how it works. It's not enough to influence decisions if you don't understand who's sitting around you. Your stakeholders carry pressures that you don't always see: their own KPIs, their own political pressures, personal stresses and fears. So you're not just designing through processes, you're designing for people who are carrying that invisible weight.

[00:05:08] So start to treat your stakeholders like users. Like people, even. Learn to speak their language. Don't limit yourself to reductive assumptions based on their job functions. Learn what their real needs are, what they're really trying to achieve. Ask, "What's weighing on your mind right now?" and actually listen to them.

[00:05:30] Once you've learned what your stakeholders are trying to achieve, then you can start to understand when they need to achieve it, because we're not all working on the same timelines. Practitioners very commonly work in sprints, focused on delivering the commitments with their product team. Leaders work in quarters. Your board thinks in years. So influence isn't just about understanding the problem. It's about connecting your solutions to the time scales of the right people, who can help move those solutions forward. You gain influence by connecting today's work to tomorrow's outcomes.

[00:06:09] And that influence is earned through your credibility. You build credibility by delivering now, by doing what you said you were going to do in the sprint, making your progress visible and tangible, and framed in your stakeholders' language of success, not just yours. That trust earns you access to influence what happens next, and over time it increases your scope of complexity and responsibility and builds your readiness to grow to that next level.

Your stakeholders are people too

[00:06:37] Now, I get that this sounds a bit complicated, but I see it as just reframing what we're doing anyway. For example, you've probably seen this model before. I think we even saw it yesterday again a few times. You've probably seen this one, and this one, and maybe even created one of the 33,000 versions of this floating around the internet. But what do they all have in common? Every single one starts with understanding the users, the people.

[00:07:07] This instinct to listen first and understand real needs is one of our most powerful tools, and we've gotten pretty good at it over the years, in fairness. We spend a lot of time in our discovery sessions, creating big insight maps and reports, and praying the org priorities and the people and the politics don't change before we're finished. Because of course we all love the corporate politics. But here's what we sometimes forget: your stakeholders are people too.

[00:07:33] So we have to use our superpowers to understand their needs, their deadlines, their pressures, then offer value and build trust intentionally. As for politics, it's not about manipulation. It's not dirty work. It's how people build relationships with each other when they're working under real pressure and uncertainty. When you understand what the people around you need and help them to succeed, you build trust, and that trust is what opens the doors that you need for influence.

[00:08:04] So trust is a system you're actually navigating. It's not magic. It's a process we already know how to design for. The real challenge isn't that we don't know how to be empathetic. It's that we forget to apply it inside our organizations as well.

A strategy that stalled: persist with purpose

[00:08:25] This is a proposal I made a few years ago, as a strategy to automate our marketing operations and personalize our experiences at scale. Corporate comms: I can't show you the details. But trust me, this strategy was like Berlin's hottest nightclub. It had everything. It had a consumer vision. It had ambitious changes to our global and local ways of working to enable it. It had an industry-leading AI concept before that was a thing. It had beautiful frameworks. Numbers went up, numbers went down, scary numbers to make sure people did something. And it even had Jenna Ortega on the cover.

[00:09:03] Basically, I'd figured out how to transform our multi-billion-euro marketing operation to deliver truly consumer-centric experiences. It was the best work of my career. And best of all, everyone who saw it loved it. The leadership said, "Yes, let's go, that's what we need." You see where this is going, right? And then we stalled, and we kept stalling. The vision wasn't wrong, but the system wasn't ready. The tech foundations had to be built out. We didn't have operational readiness, or the right strategic timing.

[00:09:40] Now, I'll be honest for a moment. It's been a tough couple of years. We did some great work building out those platform foundations, and we developed some critical mechanics, but we were getting no closer to that original ambitious vision. So what did I do? I kept pushing, and tried to find different doors to unlock some progress. But honestly, I burned some trust and burned my credibility. When stakeholders didn't see progress towards that complete vision, I started to lose influence, which then further affected my ability to affect implementation in the teams around me, which was pretty hard. I stretched myself too thin and tried to push something through, and the system wasn't ready.

[00:10:22] But here's what's important: the work is coming to life now, and it's really awesome to see. We've had changes in the leadership, the strategy and the team setup. The tech is finally there. And crucially, the vision persisted, became more complete, and is central to the digital strategy now. But it took over two years, and that's what I want you to take from this. You have to persist, persist with purpose. Hold your vision, build your relationships, but don't burn the system, and don't burn yourself. Because timing matters, and readiness is rarely what you want it to be. But when it is time, it's worth it.

You are the culture

[00:11:08] One sec, let me sort this out. Thanks for your patience. So how do you pace yourself to deal with this reality? Let's start by remembering that you are the organization too. You are the culture. We often talk about culture like it's something that just exists, hardened and handed down, but it's not. Culture is built moment by moment, by how you show up. When you move with clarity and intention, others follow.

[00:11:44] Every catch-up, every proposal, every negotiation is a cultural prototype. Even something as small as bringing a rough draft into a meeting early in the process, instead of perfect slides, demonstrates how you see openness and collaboration. Model the behaviors you want to scale.

[00:12:00] As designers, we have a unique ability to lead this. Our superpower is our ability to make abstract ideas tangible. We talk to everyone in the organization. We can distill what we learn from them into a central idea, then make that idea concrete, and then bring it back to them and get even better feedback. So we're even more aligned on our collective goals, all the while modeling our shared values. Design isn't just your outputs. It's the work you do to build this shared reality. So think of your designs as tools to build alignment at every level.

Choosing the right artifact for the alignment you need

[00:12:41] Now, that's all well and good, you might say, but how do you know what to make when you don't know, and you can't control, when it'll land? A lot of that comes back to what you choose to create. Sorry, I skipped ahead somehow.

[00:13:03] What I mean by that is that every artifact you're creating, whether it's a journey map, a six-pager or a rollout plan, is a tool to design for alignment. Figure out where you are in the work. Are you trying to understand the problem, explore solutions, or drive action forward? Which horizon are you working on? Are you shipping now, are you shaping your next quarter, or are you setting the strategic direction?

[00:13:30] In that context, a journey map doesn't just clarify the user needs. It signals care for context and collaboration. An experience vision isn't just a bunch of pretty designs. It's a pitch for shared commitment. And a strategy isn't some random deck. It's a cultural prototype of where you want to go and how you want to bring the people with you.

[00:13:52] At each level, whatever you're creating, you're always trying to build shared clarity on: what's the user problem you're solving for; your confidence that it's actually the right problem to be solving and the right path to solve it; your desired outcome; the opportunity size; and your collective ability to take action. Put more simply, and you can put this in all your meeting agendas if you like, you're always trying to answer this question: what are we doing now, and why are we doing it?

[00:14:23] To be clear, you don't need to make all of these artifacts to achieve this. That would not be effective. But the ones you choose, and how you share them, are what shape how the people around you think, decide and work. That's how we lead: not by controlling the chaos, but by designing for clarity inside it. And in doing so, you're not just building alignment, you're creating that culture moment by moment.

Simple moves to create momentum

[00:14:54] So when things feel messy and you're trying to create that movement around you, you don't always need a fancy strategy doc. Sometimes all you need is to make the right move. Think about what you're doing: how is that going to help you move forward? Here are a few moves I often come back to.

[00:15:09] First, and possibly most importantly, design the right artifact for the alignment you're trying to create right now. Not just the default deck or prototype, but the artifact that will enable the right discussion to build that shared clarity. Use your one-to-ones to listen. Find out what's on their mind, hear their real concerns, which won't surface in larger group settings and workshops. Invite them for a coffee, have a chat. It really is that simple.

[00:15:39] Then, understanding what's on their mind, frame your outcomes in their language, not just your artifacts. Figure out what their success looks like, their context, their horizon, and then play your work back in that way. And then, when you actually go to creating the work, prioritize work that will have impact in that context. Deliver something that resonates, and use that to get buy-in, and then momentum to keep going.

[00:16:07] These aren't very flashy tactics. There's nothing earth-shattering here. But they're memorable, easy to do, and they're what I keep coming back to, to move things forward. Because we don't design and build experiences in perfect conditions. We work in high ambition and heavy complexity, surrounded by experts, each one of them with real pressures and needs.

[00:16:35] You won't always control the chaos. You might never control the chaos, and that's okay. You can choose how you move through it, with intent. Focus where it matters, build trust where you can, and persist with purpose. And sometimes that is enough to change everything. Believe in that, and believe in yourself. I know you can do this. Thank you.

Q&A

[00:17:17] Host: I was enraptured. You caught me completely by surprise at the end of that one.

[00:17:21] Niall: I caught myself by surprise.

[00:17:22] Host: Absolutely wonderful stuff. I think if there was an award today for the most brilliant one-line quotes to inspire but also inform, that's the slide deck of all time. Absolutely amazing. I wrote some of my favorites down. "Politics is just trust on a deadline." Wild, love that. "Chaos equals opportunity." A while ago I was in a workshop, and someone started it off by asking, "What is your favorite word?" I had a think, and I came up with chaos. I'd never really thought about it before, and I think it's because chaos brings opportunity, and order is boring. There's always something to do in the chaos. I love it.

[00:18:01] We have a good chunk of time for questions, and we've got a lot of questions coming through, so if you're happy, let's dive in. Great. The first one isn't even a question. It's just people saying thank you, thank you for bringing the human side of things. Absolutely love it. "This is all good." Apparently everything's all going to be fine. "Thank you for the pep talk." For real, this is it. Okay, we're not doing a Q&A now, let's just build Niall art, because I think we can all agree... Let's give another round of applause. We can all agree this was wonderfully inspiring.

[00:18:38] "You're doing great." I love this. This person has put their encouragement in their name so they can ask a question as well. That's smart, love this going forward. Oh, "You're doing great" has just disappeared off the screen. Oh no, I'm sorry, can we see what "You're doing great" had just asked? There are questions in the room as well. Yeah, it's disappeared. Okay. You have a question, AJ, while this is... Oh, look at this, this is in action. "Measure success." Right, what have we got at the top? It's jumping all over the place. "How do you align web design with new campaigns?" That piece, with so many cross-collaborations, was such high impact. How did you manage the chaos of so many different things in a campaign like that?

[00:19:24] Niall: Well, I appreciate you using the past tense, like I've solved it.

[00:19:28] Host: How are you currently going about solving the chaos?

[00:19:35] Niall: I think it's important to recognize where you're sitting in an organization. Sometimes we can think that what we're doing is the most important thing, and it's amazing, and we're proud of it. But you have to understand that, to put it brutally, you're a cog in this giant machine, which also has many cogs doing important things, and they all need to be in their spot. So you have to really recognize: okay, what are all these people and teams doing, and why are they doing it? And be humble, not thinking, "Right, I can just burn that down, because that'll make my thing work."

[00:20:04] You have to think: okay, Adidas is a giant company, a giant marketing engine. Smart people have thought about this, we do this for a reason. So I can't just come in and say, "Oh, we're just going to turn off the campaigns," or "We're just going to personalize," or other such words, without really understanding what would happen if we actually did that. Not just in the interface layer, which often isn't the most important part, but what happens to all the wider activation strategies, the brand strategies, and all of the meaningful money that's spent much earlier in the funnel, so that people will come to a touchpoint like a website or an app and find products that are relevant to what we're actually trying to get people to do, which is to go running or play football.

[00:20:49] It's not so important exactly how this campaign lives within some boxes on a touchpoint. We have to think about relevancy more than execution, and think: okay, where can we help the brand achieve their goals by bringing capabilities that only exist in digital, while recognizing that digital is one piece of a very big pie of how we activate and bring campaigns to life. I'm not sure if that exactly answers the question.

[00:21:13] Host: I think it did answer the question. Ultimately, once again, with the topic of your talk being "don't get overwhelmed by chaos," also don't get overwhelmed, by having more of a zoomed-out, holistic look at things. I loved the table you put up, with what is the right layer of granularity and focus depending on who you are talking to. I think it's really important. We often forget it, especially in our own niches. So the big thing I think everyone in the room should take away from that is: who are you talking to, and at what level do they want to understand things? Don't get overwhelmed by the piece in the moment.

[00:21:45] Niall: Exactly. And don't be too precious with artifacts. They're tools, to be disposed of once you've gotten to that alignment and you move forward to the next thing.

[00:21:52] Host: Yeah, fantastic. Cool. The top question, and you may answer this yourself in a completely unbiased way: best presentation of the conference?

[00:22:04] Niall: Well, I'll admit that I very selfishly set out this morning to practice my talk, so I didn't see some of this morning's sessions. So let's see. But I appreciate the feedback.

[00:22:14] Host: Love it. With confidentiality intact, can you give us your favorite case study on building empathy with users at Adidas?

[00:22:31] Niall: Well, honestly, it's a little hard to answer, because we're a very consumer-centric company. Not just on the slides, I think we genuinely try to do this. So there are a lot of people around the business, not only in our experience design function or research, but elsewhere, all thinking about what is actually relevant for these people in this country. Because what works in Seoul is going to be a very different type of experience to what works in Bogotá. What happens in LA is going to be very different to what happens in Chicago. So you have to really think about who the people are that you're trying to connect with, and help them achieve their goals, and then how we understand that better and better.

[00:23:12] But if I think of a piece of work that really had a lot of impact and really set that trajectory of consumer-centric execution, there was a piece of research we did many years ago, when we were building up the practice, which we called, I think, Couch to 5K. Literally people just getting off the couch trying to run, and going deep with a lot of different users in different countries to figure out how they actually do this. Sorry, people, not users. It was really eye-opening, not just for us but also for people in the running business, to understand that normally people are not going to get up and just buy the most expensive shoes and go. No, they're going to go running in their Superstars, and then about a month later they're going to screw up their knees, and then they'll understand, "Oh, I probably need the right shoes and gear," and then you start to have a different conversation.

[00:23:58] So it allowed us to think beyond the execution of selling, to thinking about time. What's the right conversation at this moment with this person, and how do we bring them to the next stage in their journey? And then how do we eventually make sure they do in fact go running, and help them to do that, and then bring them back around again? That became very central to how we think about our setup and our work and our relationships with the brand.

[00:24:18] Host: There is no one answer, it is always the context. I love that, it's great. Overwhelmingly, people would like some money off Adidas. How are we doing with that? Any chance?

[00:24:27] Niall: Find me later.

[00:24:30] Host: Okie dokie. So that's a cue for anyone online to bombard you now with LinkedIn requests. Okay, good, we'll move on. This is a great segue from what you've just been talking about. In terms of every stakeholder being different, every situation being different, really understanding that context: how are you gauging it? Do you have any golden questions you use to understand stakeholders? Is there an in that you start with to understand their mind?

[00:24:58] Niall: Honestly, it's in the broad space of communication, let's say. And honestly, it's something I'm continuously working on, and I very much don't get it right all of the time, or even some of the time, my leader might say. But it's something you just have to keep trying. I think the main thing is to get out of your own head, to stop thinking, "Right, I'm trying to sell this person right now," and start thinking, "Okay, what are they trying to do?" So honestly, very often my opening question in one-to-ones is, "How are you doing?" And actually give that space to hear how they're actually doing, and not just dive straight into "we need to align on this thing or that thing" and have a heavy discussion. But it's personal, dependent on the person and on the relationship you've built up with them. I think it starts with just being people on that level, and then going to the work.

[00:25:44] Host: Yeah, I love that. Ultimately, at the end of the day, everyone's got something going on, and that starts the conversation, and it's important to them, and so it becomes important to you to drive everything through. Do you wear Nike in secret? I skipped that one before because that's a great question.

[00:26:04] Niall: No, I'm on brand only, honestly. I've worked for Adidas for almost nine years now, and even before I worked there, I think I always had an affinity for the brand. But after nine years, your wardrobe becomes pretty full of stripes, and I have no real need for swooshes.

[00:26:22] Host: Oh no. Honestly, spicy, spicy, spicy. What I will do, because this is great and we've got a good chunk of time for questions, is intersperse the serious questions with some of the fun comments I'm seeing coming up. We're going to dive into Alen's question. How do you recommend navigating shifting priorities when you're not the one setting them, but you're the one trying to push the impact?

[00:26:46] Niall: Well, look, it's not easy, let's not sugarcoat it. I don't know if it's unique to large organizations or smaller ones, but things are going to change, and so you have to just set yourself up for that reality, and maybe not hold on too tightly to whatever you're working on in that moment. What has often helped me over the years is to be as clear as I can be on what I am really trying to achieve. Not necessarily in this particular work, but in general. For me, in general, I'm trying to get to something like really relevant consumer experiences at an Adidas scale, meaning that it's highly tailored in different countries, and it's done really well, in a way that you can when you have our scale and resources.

[00:27:33] Now, there are all sorts of ways to do that, and any one of those priorities will be a door into achieving a part of it. So a lot of the time, when the priorities shift, I try to think: okay, what door has now opened, so that we find a different path forward? And then maybe in 6 months or 12 months we'll come back to whatever I was doing previously, cycle back around.

[00:27:50] Host: I love that. Again, I'll go through a few of the fun things that have popped up. Someone has mentioned that your knowledge is as high as your collar. We've had "great jacket" pop through from a few people. I think you've won an awful lot of fans today. Here, we're not talking about Kanye. Ye is not on the agenda. Let's dive back into proper questions. How do you measure success? Simple question, hard answer.

[00:28:22] Niall: Well, it depends, right? Success of what? There's personal success, success of the team, success of the work you're doing. Personally, as I was trying to get across in the slides: am I actually making progress? Am I building that credibility? How do I know that? You know it through the feedback you're getting, through the buy-in, and essentially whether the essence of what you've agreed on is actually being prioritized in roadmaps, which demonstrates that you've had that buy-in. For the team, it's about: are we creating wider playing fields for ourselves? Are we increasing the scope of opportunity that we have to get closer to that wider vision and potential that we have to bring?

[00:29:00] And obviously, for the work itself, you measure based on what the user's need is in the part of the journey you're working on, and then how you know if you're solving for that. For example, for a lot of our work in simplifying the workflows, we would think about something like reducing the overall time to market, whereas for a specific task you would think about time on task. But in the end, if you simplify down to nothing, then what? Is success that all these people go? Of course not. Success is that they're now better able to work on the actual meat of the problem, which they didn't have the bandwidth to do before. So then I'll think about: are we helping them get into a position to be able to do that?

[00:29:40] Host: I love that. Again, it depends on the layer, it depends on the scope, it depends on what you really need. But I think the key part for me in there is working out and defining what success is for this context, for this moment, and then driving towards that and being very explicit about it. Not just doing it yourself.

[00:29:56] Niall: Yeah, aligning and being really explicit about that.

[00:29:58] Host: I think it's really, really important. Some other fun things in there. Apparently "Niall 10" at checkout will give you a discount. I do not believe that that is true. Lots of people have asked a quick-fire question: are you hiring?

[00:30:12] Niall: Somewhere in the company we are, but I don't think we're hiring in design right now.

[00:30:17] Host: What a shame.

[00:30:19] Niall: But check out the careers website. When things open up, they'll go there. Or keep connections with me or some of the team. Right now we're not, but I think Adidas [?] will be around for a while, and so at some point we will be. Just think about how you can be ready to come and join us when things open up.

[00:30:34] Host: Great. I'm enjoying that the latest question has just become a banter conversation at this point. This is why I signed up to host, I love this. Keep it rolling in while we have serious conversations. A lovely question in the last 30 seconds at the front. Oh no, no, we're moving on from that, because I think the top question is really powerful. "As someone who is an overly loud, extroverted individual, how do introverts become more influential?"

[00:31:04] Niall: Yeah, I love that question, because honestly I would consider myself to be quite introverted. I'm going to go and cry in a corner after this, to get rid of the stress. And look, it is hard. I think, especially in corporate environments, it can at times feel easier for extroverted personalities, who get a lot of energy from meeting a lot of people, and who are able to be very direct and vocal and visible.

[00:31:31] But I think as an introvert, you have to think about how you achieve that same outcome of visibility and buy-in in a way that matters for you, and that you know is something you're able to do. So maybe it's not going on stage in front of the company and presenting to the whole digital org. Or if you need to do that, then taking a lot of time and really practicing it, and making sure that you're confident. But it's probably going to look a lot more like having those smaller one-to-ones and smaller group catch-ups, and more methodically building up that awareness of and buy-in to what you're trying to do, and taking it from there.

[00:32:06] Host: Fantastic. A summary from me here at the end will not do anything justice, and the comments speak for themselves. Everyone engaged right before lunch speaks for itself. Let's give another huge round of applause to Niall.