Leadership readiness at Umbraco: an in-house academy and leadership in practice

The challenge

Umbraco needed to equip both current and future leaders. The company works internationally and in English, and the development had to suit an organisation that is growing and keeps the customer close to the product.

The assignment

We designed an ambitious programme with several modules over time, in which the leaders trained leadership in practice — also in English — and in which the company's own academy was established as the framework, so that development could continue after the programme.

The collaboration grew into a multi-year client relationship: Cronquist Consult delivered repeated Process Leadership programmes for Umbraco over several years. The programmes were delivered in English.

Process Leadership in five modules

The repeated programmes followed the same five-module structure. The modules were not five isolated courses; together they formed one integrated leadership-development journey.

How the programme was built

• Modules spread over time, so new behaviour could be tried out in everyday work in between.
• Leadership in practice, delivered in English.
• An outdoor-based residential programme.
• Personal leadership as a thread running through the programme.
• A customer-oriented Customer Deep Dive grounded in Umbraco's own customer culture.
• Several modules delivered online, where that made most sense for the organisation.

Methods and learning arenas

The programme followed the LeaderShop model, which has also been used at e-conomic (today Visma e-conomic A/S) and Jobindex, among others. Methodologically we worked with action learning, changing learning arenas and practical assignments with real content — not purely theoretical modules.

JTI, Action Learning and Customer Deep Dive were methods and elements within the Process Leadership programme — not separate assignments.

Implementation in everyday work

Between modules the leaders received 1:1 coaching, worked with buddy sparring and completed written assignments. The aim was for what the group trained together to be tested in each leader's own department.

• Kick-off
• 1:1 coaching
• Buddy sparring and buddy talks
• Written home assignments
• Preparation and presentations
• Business cases
• Videos, podcasts and articles
• Applying the learning in participants' own leadership roles

A development partnership over several years

The relationship with Umbraco developed beyond the repeated Process Leadership programmes. Alongside the leadership development, Cronquist Consult has worked with Umbraco on:

• teaching and presentation skills / Train-the-Trainer
• workshops and seminars on operations
• workshops and seminars on sales
• workshops and seminars on development
• workshops/seminars with Gold Partners
• multiple 1:1 coaching and management-sparring engagements with managers

Train-the-Trainer

Part of the collaboration focused on teaching and presentation skills, so that employees and leaders could teach, instruct and present with greater clarity themselves — in keeping with the academy framework, in which development was meant to continue in-house.

What we take with us

A leadership programme in an international organisation has to work in the company's own working language and its own culture. When the academy framework belongs to the company, development stops being a project and becomes a way of working.

We do not publish figures for the programme's impact, as there is no documented measurement we can refer to. What is documented is the collaboration itself: repeated programmes over several years, repeated assignments and broad work with both managers and the organisation.