by Todd Hudson

Whenever I’m in Portland, Oregon, my favorite place to shop is a natural foods chain called New Seasons Market. The produce is fresh. The selection is great. But what really sets them apart from every other grocery store is their top-notch customer service.

At New Seasons, there’s always an employee nearby to cheerfully answer a question or help me find an item, whether they’re behind the counter, in the aisle or at the cash register.

And it’s not just at one store. It’s at all nine of them. New Seasons employs 1,700 people. Having run operations for decades myself, I know you don’t get such consistent high performance by accident. What’s their secret? I wondered. Could it have anything to do with training? Read the rest of this article »