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Chapter 5LEADERSHIP THROUGHOUT THE ORGANIZATION: 48,000 STRONG AND COUNTING

Leadership is an action, not a position.

—Donald McGannon¹

Paul Langlois (pronounced Lang-Loy) grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, and had one of those high school teachers who propels a student toward a particular career. His French teacher at Humboldt High School lit a fire in him for the French language and teaching. Paul received his degree from St. Paul's Macalester College in 1990, where he majored in French and earned a secondary education teaching certificate. His career as a French teacher lasted a year. He discovered that the teaching profession was a lot of administration and babysitting but very little teaching. For the next decade, he worked a number of jobs until he landed at Best Buy in 2002 on their continuous improvement team. Over the next eight years, he had the opportunity to coach, teach, and train adults. He loved it, and it reignited his passion for teaching.

Paul came to Ecolab in 2010 as training director and Master Black Belt for the company's Lean & Six Sigma corporate program. He soon connected with Ros Tsai, who lead training for the institutional division, and the two began to build a learning community by bringing together what was then a set of very siloed training operations at Ecolab. As they began their work, Ecolab doubled in size with the Nalco acquisition. That meant building a community that spanned different businesses, cultures, and global locations. They brought ...