Direction statement

Most companies have vision and mission statements; displayed in the lobby, in the websites and conveniently forgotten. They are wordy and no one remembers. Hardly implemented.

Instead, we have a direction statement. A direction statement is a 7 word phrase, that will clearly tell everyone where the company is heading. Every company decision will be viewed through this prism.

How does it help? Well, we have all heard of employees cribbing “this company is a headless chicken, they don’t know what they are doing. It is going nowhere”, this happens when management takes seemingly random decisions, decides on one way and soon take another way. This is because the company lacks a direction. There is no load-stone, a compass. With a direction statement, everyone and everything is aligned to a common goal. Instead of different departments taking their own directions and pulling the company in different directions, the entire company will be like a marching army. In sync. The company is never “lost” with a direction statement.

With a clear direction statement, customers, vendors, partners, employees all understand what we do. So, say, when a customer finds a need, we will be in the top of his mind recall. He calls us and gives his requirements – this is priceless when you are startup fishing for opportunities. This is insights crystallized into product offering straight from horses mouth.

With a clear direction statement, it is easy to innovate, because direction is set. Else, the only metric for anything will be “ROI” that may not add up beyond the appraisals. We have had multiple instances where we are able to line up seemingly non-opportunities into opportunities.

Today, a lot of companies have in-congruence between their industry, business model, and revenue model. This breaks the enterprise. For e.g., say Coco-cola, they industry is F&B, which essentially should have been food and nutrition, but Coco-cola’s business model is about “open happiness”, and their revenue actually comes from sugar-addiction. This leads to a food industry that makes people unhealthy. Will not happen with a direction statement.

Time for examples:

Specimen 1: Infosys used a phrase, “to be the most respected software services company”, this is akin to our direction statement. To meet this objective, they started publishing their audit reports in compliance with the most countries. They invited world renowned dignitaries to the campus. The campus itself was world class. Infy was listed in Nasdaq. Were one of the first to be compliant to CMM level 4 and CMMI standards. The founders were positioned as “Respected” in the media – which they were of-course. The smartest were hired based on their problem (puzzle) solving abilities. On hiring, every employee had to get through a gauntlet of a training.  Did all this make them the most respected? Yes, it did. But, as software services was commoditized, it was time to reinvent and change the direction statement, which they didn’t. 

Specimen 2: I was director of innovations in OnMobile Global limited. We are the largest in the world in mobile value added space. When I got this post, I was bit confused. What should I innovate. What’s good and what’s bad. More over, we were constantly hearing “this company is going nowhere”. 

So, to see what’s going wrong, I took presentation from early years of the company and current. The products hadn’t changed much. But I could li-sense a change in offering. In the initial days presentations, I could see a language that hinted “we make information access on mobiles easy”. In later day presentation, it was all about content and revenues. The original direction was lost. Needless, it was common to hear everywhere “this company is going nowhere”.  I could see a different future for the company if the direction statement was etched in everyone’s mind. 

Why should it be 7 words or less? Well, people cannot remember and bucket you if there are more words.

Other guide lines:

Typically the company name should answer the “Why” i.e., why should your company exist. How does it benefit the consumer. 

Direction statement is a functional tag line that also tells the customers “how” and “what”. 

With these 7 words, everyone should know how you are unique and how to bucket you. 

How do we use it in Peer-Mentor:

1. Peer-Mentor – co-founder & mentor for your Ikigai 
2. futureReadykids.com – Empowering kids by habituating “doing” & “self-learning”. 
3. easyTaaza.com – building sustainable food systems
4. toNotErr – tools to naught human error in healthcare 
5. (under the radar, in automotive IoT) – Make safe driving cool!