How H&R Block CEO Jeff Jones uses raw, honest communication to build team trust

Tax season may be over, but Jeff Jones and his team at H&R Block still have their work cut out for them.

The company is four years into a five-year transformation strategy that’s seen it diversify into small business services and financial products, while reinventing its traditional consumer tax offering too. H&R Block is also making the shift from a primarily brick-and-mortar retailer to a leader in deploying generative AI in its products, president and CEO Jones says. “Those are two examples of very hard from-tos that are well underway.”

The business problem is growth, and the key to growth is innovation, Jones tells me from his office in Kansas City, Mo. “Speed is required to innovate—what’s important to go faster, trust,” he says. “And I’ve learned the absolute key to trust is a new way to communicate.”

For teams and their companies, communicating well is no frill. Poor communication costs U.S. businesses as much as $1.2 trillion a year, or about $12,500 per employee, one study found.

So what’s this new way that Jones is talking about?

Early last year, he began an intensive personal leadership program at the Stagen Leadership Institute. “What I learned that we have put into practice at H&R Block is the power of intimacy on teams,” says Jones, who leads about 60,000 people worldwide. “And the power of disproving self-orientation on teams,” he adds, referring to a focus on one’s own needs and interests.

Jones shares a couple of examples.

At the start of every leadership meeting, the team does what H&R Block calls checking in. “Each leadership team member speaks, and they literally say whatever they have to say in order to be present for that meeting,” Jones explains.

One person might ask for grace because they’re dead tired, while another might remark that they can’t wait to get going. It’s wide open.

“When we first started doing that, people thought I was crazy,” Jones says. “They are now starting to realize that what it does is build intimacy.”

Then there’s the “balcony,” where everyone takes time to observe and reflect on how they showed up together as a team. Before our chat, Jones had just finished a daylong strategy meeting. “One of my colleagues said, ‘Hey, I want to let you guys know that when X and Y were happening, I felt attacked. I didn’t feel like the team was understanding where I was coming from and was taking the time to listen,’” he recalls. “A year and a half ago, no one would have ever said that and communicated with each other with that kind of open, raw approach.”

At H&R Block, which is committed to being a fully hybrid business, Jones has found a different way to connect with his team at scale too. Sure, the company has all-hands meetings, Teams channels, and an intranet. “But people started saying to me personally, ‘We want more time with you,’” Jones relates. So he launched a 20-minute internal podcast called Just Jeff that lets people ask him questions. “I commit to answering three questions on every podcast,” Jones says. “So then there’s a reason to tune in the next time.”

H&R Block also clearly and simply communicates its strategy to team members. To that end, the entire company has access to a one-pager that outlines its three strategic imperatives and four ambitions. “I would bet a lot of money that most of the organization could recite those verbatim,” Jones says. “And it’s because of the simplicity, the constant repetition.”

With everything else that’s in play, that doesn’t sound too taxing.

Nick Rockel
nick.rockel@consultant.fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com