Louis CarterFounder and Chief Executive Officer, Best Practice Institute · Founder and CEO, Best Practice Institute - Most Loved Workplace® | Organizational Psychologist | Creator of AI Workplace Intelligence and Employer Branding Platform

US Steel CEO David Burritt on How to Innovate Quickly to Improve Margins and Help Your Customer

25 Jan 2022 · 1 min

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1:13

In this interview, US Steel CEO David Burritt describes how, during the COVID pandemic, he began proactively interviewing other CEOs to understand economic impacts and identify collaboration opportunities. This outreach led to connecting US Steel engineers with those of a partner company, which then engaged Greenbrier. Within six months, US Steel sold 26,000 tons of its high‑strength, low‑carbon Vertex steel—referred to as “green steel”—to Greenbrier. The steel’s lighter weight reduces each railcar by 15,200 pounds, delivering cost savings for the customer and higher profit margins for US Steel. The conversation highlights the importance of rapid, cross‑organizational innovation, psychological safety, and a collaborative network that enables ideas to move quickly through the organization and generate tangible business results.

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the kind of innovation and the kinds of things that our teams can do. During the COVID world, we looked at it differently. And so I started reaching out and, and, um, started interviewing CEOs. We arranged for a 30-minute interview. We asked him a little bit about his company, what's going on with the economy and COVID, what's working, what's not, what could go better. And it led us into a discussion about advanced high-strength steel. We can hook our engineers up together. And he said, yeah, that would be great. And this is unbelievable. Our engineers then meet with their engineers. Their engineers call up Greenbrier, and 6 months later, we sold 26,000 tons of Vertex Steel, the green steel, to these guys. Lighter weight, taking 15,200 pounds off of each railcar. It's cheaper for them, and we get higher margins for that business. So, I mean, it's that type of thing I want for our team, where we have an idea, We get at the right level of the organization and we can innovate quickly.
It's a wonderful ideology, isn't it? Collaborate, give psychological safety, enable the network, and you have something great that you can iterate and make into something even better.