Ulrika Gustafson Advisory
Corporate Advisory
You reorganized. You brought in someone senior to own it.
You ran the offsite and everyone left aligned. Six months later the same decisions are still sitting on the same desks.
You've got two leaders who won't say it out loud but are working against each other. A strategy everyone signed off on that nobody is actually executing. A function that keeps missing its numbers, and when you look at it properly the person running it isn't the problem.
Somebody in your building knows exactly what's going on. They're not going to tell you, because the person who says it out loud becomes the problem.
So you're making decisions about your own organization on partial information, and you know it.
I find out what's actually causing it. Then I tell you, including the part nobody in the building will say to you.
61%
of the time managers spend making decisions is ineffective, and fewer than half say decisions are timely. McKinsey
80%
of reorganizations fail to deliver the value they were supposed to in the time planned. 10% cause real damage to the company. McKinsey
21%
of executives personally involved in a redesign call it a success. Nearly half say theirs was abandoned before the changes were implemented. McKinsey
2x
the financial returns for organizations that make decisions both fast and well, compared to their slower peers. McKinsey
MOST PEOPLE WHO DO THIS WORK HAVE STUDIED ORGANIZATIONS.
I'VE RUN THEM.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE FROM WHERE YOU SIT
The same decision comes back to your desk for the third time. Each time somebody has a new reason it isn't ready.
Your VP of Operations owns the delivery number. She doesn't control the hiring budget or the two team leads doing the work. So she spends her week asking people for things instead of deciding them, and when the number misses, it's her name on it.
Sales is paid on volume. Finance is paid on margin. They're fighting every week and both of them are doing exactly what you told them to do.
You moved someone into a bigger title last year. The people who used to go around her still go around her, straight to whoever had the job before. The chart changed. Nothing else did.
And there's one person, usually in operations or finance, who has been quietly covering a hole for three years. You can't see the hole because they're standing in it. You'll see it the week they resign.
WHY IT DOESN'T GET FIXED FROM THE INSIDE
Somebody in your building knows exactly what's going on. Probably several people, each holding one piece of it.
They're not going to tell you.
Not because they're disloyal. Because the person who says it out loud becomes the problem. The one who names the two executives who won't work together is now the one with the interpersonal issue. The one who says the strategy doesn't survive contact with how the place actually runs is now not a team player. Everybody learns this early and nobody has to be told twice.
So the information you'd need to fix it is sitting in your organization, distributed across eight people, and every one of them has a reason not to give it to you.
HR can't give it to you either. HR is managing the company's exposure, which is a legitimate job and a different job from telling you the truth about your own leadership team.
That's the gap I work in. I don't work for anyone in your building. I'm not up for a promotion, I'm not protecting a function, and I don't need anyone there to like me afterwards.
WHAT I LOOK FOR
Decision rights. Who actually decides, as opposed to who the chart says decides. Where the same decision gets made twice. Where nobody will own it and it sits.
01
Authority and accountability. Who carries the number without controlling the budget, the headcount or the people who have to say yes. This is where most of the damage is.
02
Incentives. What each function is measured and paid on, and where two of those pull against each other. Your people are usually doing exactly what you've paid them to do.
03
The leadership team. Who works with whom. Who avoids whom. Which two people have a problem that everyone below them has already routed around.
04
Information flow. What reaches you and what stops one layer down. Who filters, and what gets filtered out.
05
What was tried before. The last two reorganizations, the operating model, the senior hire brought in to fix it. What actually happened to each one, because whatever killed them is still in the building.
06
Where the work actually happens. Which meetings decide things and which ones perform deciding. Who gets overruled afterwards by someone who wasn't in the room.
07
Single points of failure. The person quietly covering a structural hole. You can't see the hole because they're standing in it.
08
THE ASSESSMENT
01 - SCOPE
We agree who I talk to and what I get to see. Access decides what I can find, so we settle it first.
02 - THE INTERVIEWS
Private conversations, one at a time. What someone tells with their boss in the room is not what they tell me alone, and the distance between those two versions is usually the most useful thing I find.
03 - THE MATERIAL
The strategy, the org chart, the incentives, the board papers, the last two reorganizations. I want to know what you have tried before and what killed it, because whatever killed it is likely still in the building.
04 - THE WRITTEN ASSESSMENT
What's actually driving the behavior, where that differs from what you believed, and what has to change in what order.
05 - THE DECISION MAP
Every consequential decision, and for each: who decides, who can veto, who has to be consulted, and who currently thinks they own it. Mot leadership teams have never seen this written down.
06 - THE WORKING SESSION
We go through it all together. Not a presentation. You push back, I answer.
WHAT COMES AFTER
Knowing what's wrong and fixing it are two different jobs, and most organizations are better at the first one.
Who decides what, and in what order things move. Who gets told before the announcement and who finds out in the meeting, because that choice makes people allies or obstacles for the next year. The conversation you've been putting off with the person you can't afford to lose. What your first visible move signals to everyone watching, and what to do in week three when someone starts slowing it down without ever saying no.
Scoped after the assessment, because until I've done the work neither of us knows whether you need me for two months or a year.
No team, no juniors, no transformation office. You get me.
THE RESULTS
CLEAR DECISIONS ACROSS THE LEADERSHIP TEAM
DECISIONS MADE ONCE, THAT STAY MADE
ACCOUNTABILITY MATCHED TO AUTHORITY
INCENTIVES THAT STOP PULLING FUNCTIONS AGAINST EACH OTHER
A LEADERSHIP TEAM OPERATING AS ONE, NOT AS A SET OF FUNCTIONS
CHANGES THAT HOLD PAST THE FIRST QUARTER
Why UGA
Ulrika Gustafson is an executive advisor and attorney. As the founder of Ulrika Gustafson Advisory, she works with senior leaders on the decisions where getting it wrong is expensive, and with the organizations they lead on why those decisions keep stalling.
She has held CEO and C-suite roles across several industries. Chief Legal Officer. Chief Administrative Officer over HR, finance, IT and business development. Chief Operating Officer. CEO more than once. Most executive problems cross three or four functions at once. She has been accountable in all of them, in more than one industry. She has built and run public-private partnerships, and been brought into organizations where the board had fractured, the founder was leaving, or the budget no longer worked.
Much of that career happened under public scrutiny, in union negotiations and in front of press, where getting it wrong wasn't a bad quarter, it was in the paper the next morning.
She is an attorney, licensed in Europe and founded her own firm in Sweden, which she still owns. When a client's problem turns out to be a contract, an employment file, a compliance exposure or a regulator, they get someone who understands the legal reality and the political one in the same conversation.
She works two ways. With individual leaders, privately, on what's actually driving the decisions around them. And with organizations, on why the structure they designed isn't producing the behavior they expected. The two aren't separate. Organizations don't improve without leaders who can read them accurately.
WHAT EXECUTIVES SAY ABOUT WORKING WITH ME
SVP, Operations
Global Company (U.S.)
“Look - on paper, we were good. Smart people. Strong performance. We were a ‘great team’ in all the ways that get you awards. But something was off. We were holding back with each other. Playing it safe. Agreeing too quickly. No one was pushing.
Ulrika picked up on it right away. She said, ‘You don’t need another strategy deck. You need to get out of the room - and out of your roles.’ She chose this offsite location - middle of nowhere Wyoming. A working ranch. No suits. No slides. No titles. Just dust, fire pits, bourbon, and conversations we’d been avoiding for a year. And damn if it didn’t work.
We had hard talks around campfires. Real laughter. Real honesty. I saw sides of my team I hadn’t seen in years. And for the first time in a long time, it felt like we were actually with each other - not just working next to each other.
We left there with roles re-leveled, blind spots exposed, and actual energy behind our direction. One of my peers said, ‘That was the coolest thing we’ve ever done as a team.’ And he was right.
If your team’s been running hard but quietly drifting - get Ulrika in. She’ll pull you out of the corporate fog and right into what matters. It’s uncomfortable, yeah. But it’s also the best decision we’ve made in years.”
​
Chief of Staff to C-suite Executive
Global Energy/Industrial sector
When I joined I didn't realize how much mental energy I was burning just managing how I was perceived. I wasn't struggling. I was really performing well. But at this level, everything feels more serious in a strange way. Fewer mistakes are allowed, there are more eyes on you, definitely more second-guessing afterward. Working with Ulrika in this group helped me slow that down. Not by overthinking more, just getting more clear so I could think. I started noticing pattern in how people responded to me, what landed, what didn't, and where I was giving away leverage without meaning to. The biggest shift is that I'm choosing now. I don't walk out of meetings replaying them as much in my head anymore. I know what I did, why I did it, and what signal it sent. I'm more strategic about it. Things just feel easier, I'm less drained. And people respond to me faster. I feel like I matter now.
Director, Operations & Strategy
Financial Services
I was honestly exhausted. I could see exactly why certain people were getting ahead, and it felt draining. It drove me crazy because they weren't better at the job. They were much better at playing the game. And I didn't want to be that person. It's not me. Working with Ulrika helped me realize I didn't actually need to change who I am. I just needed to understand what was really happening in the room, and how I was showing up inside it. That changed everything for me. I'm still direct, still myself, and still not into politics for politics' sake, But now I'm not sidelined and don't get overlooked. I don't leave meetings replaying everything I said or didn't say fast enough while someone else said it instead. I finally feel like I'm moving forward without selling out. To me, that's a huge relief.
Senior Legal Counsel
Global Media & Entertainment
I wasn't confused about my abilities. I was confused about the situation. Everything around me had become vague. A grey area. There were no clear leadership, no real answers, no timeline that made sense. I felt like I was working in a twilight zone. I kept trying to be patient and reasonable, but the longer it dragged on, the harder it become to tell what was signal and what was just noise. What Ulrika helped me do was step out of the fog. She didn't push me towards a decision. She helped me see the system I was operating in. Where it was stuck, what wasn't mine to fix, and what information actually mattered. Once that clicked, my instincts came back online. I stopped spinning. I knew what questions to ask, what I needed clarity on, and what I was no longer willing to wait for. The choice didn't feel risky anymore. That was the difference.
Senior Director, Product Strategy
Technology/SaaS
On paper, I was doing great. But internally, I was constantly questioning myself. I was always comparing myself to others who always seemed more confident, who always seemed to know what to and when to say it. Ulrika helped me see what was actually happening. Not in some dramatic way but just practically. I realized how I was interpreting situations, how I was showing up in conversations, and where I was holding myself back. I trust myself more now. I feel clearer in meetings, more decisive, and Ifar less thrown off by other people's opinions. I feel this program helped me be more of myself.
Ulrika Gustafson Advisory
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