Leadership OS · Technologist · Strategic Transformation
Compass · A Series on Direction and Customer Centricity

Most organisations measure position and call it direction.

The customer is true north. Nine episodes on how the needle drifts — and what it takes to read it true.

9 episodes · In planning · getunstuck.in
The governing law
What an organisation measures, rewards, and tolerates is its compass.
Not what it claims. Not what it puts in the deck. What the decisions reveal — in aggregate, over time.
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A compass shows direction, not position.
Every metric tells you where you are. Almost nothing on the dashboard tells you where you are pointed. The series turns on that confusion.
The series thesis

A healthy set of numbers and a dying account are not a contradiction. They are the normal condition of an organisation reading position and calling it direction.

Position
Utilisation · Revenue · Ticket closure · Survey scores
What the dashboard shows: where you are
— The Confusion —
Direction
Customer outcome · Trust level · Engagement depth · True north
What the compass shows: where you are pointed
The vocabulary

Four terms. One argument.

The series installs one thing: direction is not position. These four terms are the language for that distinction — used consistently across all nine episodes.

The compass
What the organisation actually optimises for — revealed by what it measures, rewards, and tolerates. Not what it claims.
True north
The customer outcome. The one reference point that does not move, regardless of market, technology, or strategy shifts.
Drift
The gradual replacement of true north by internal forces — through reasonable decisions in isolation that become fatal in aggregate.
The reading
What the customer relationship tells you about your direction — ahead of any dashboard. Trust is the needle.
The nine episodes

Direction → Drift → Understanding → Empathy → Trust → Measurement → Warning → Operating System → Philosophy.

Each episode opens on a recognisable scene from the executive's chair — names the move, gives the distinction, closes on the turn into the next. Diagnosis throughout: the structure is indicted, never the seat.

E0
Direction
To write
Every Organisation Has a Compass

Every organisation follows a compass; the question is what it points to. Organisations eventually become what their compass rewards.

Show me what an organisation measures, rewards, and tolerates, and I will show you its compass.
The frame
E1
Drift
To write
When Companies Lose Their Direction

Organisations rarely stop caring about customers. They drift — direction lost not by a turn but by a thousand reasonable elevations of the internal over the external.

Most organisations do not lose customers first. They lose direction first.
E2
Understanding
To write
The Customer Is Not Buying What You Sell

Customers buy progress, not products. The more measurable and concrete the deliverable, the easier it is to mistake the deliverable for the job.

Customers buy progress, not products.
E3
Empathy
To write
Every Customer Has Two Jobs

Every customer has an explicit job and an implicit job. The second job is personal — risk reduction, standing, looking right to the board — and it often determines whether the first job matters.

The second job often determines whether the first job matters.
E4
Trust
To write
The Reading

Trust is not the product; trust is the reading. The customer relationship is the needle, and its trust level tells you whether you are still pointed at true north. Capability creates opportunities; trust tells you whether you are keeping them.

Capability creates opportunities; trust tells you whether you are keeping them.
E5
Measurement
To write
The Internal Metrics Trap

Metrics are essential, but they become substitutes for customer outcomes. The measure becomes the mission — utilisation 95%, survey green, tickets closed on time, relationship gone. The series turns strategic here.

A metric becomes dangerous when it becomes more important than the outcome it was created to measure.
Centre of gravity
E6
Warning Signals
To write
Why Customers Leave Quietly

Customers leave gradually. No complaint, no escalation — fewer strategic conversations, more procurement, then gone. The warning lived in engagement quality, not the dashboard. Revenue loss is the last symptom.

Revenue loss is usually the last symptom. Trust loss happened much earlier.
Most shareable
E7
Operating System
To write
Building a Customer-First Operating System

Customer-first organisations are not nicer. They are designed differently — decision frameworks, incentive design, governance, and feedback loops that continuously re-point at the customer.

Customer-centricity is an operating system, not a slogan.
E8
Philosophy
To write
True North

Markets, technology, and strategy change. The customer remains the most reliable reference point — the one fixed point when everything else is up for debate. The compass exists whether or not you read it.

The purpose of a compass is not to tell you where you are. It tells you whether you are still heading in the right direction.
The series close
Who this series is written for

The leader who suspects their organisation is measuring the wrong thing — and cannot yet name what the right thing is.

CEOs and business leaders
Running organisations with healthy numbers and nagging doubt about whether the numbers are telling the whole story. Compass gives that doubt a structure.
GCC and account leaders
Holding client relationships where everything is green on the dashboard but the strategic conversations are getting shorter. The series names that gap.
Delivery and strategy leaders
Responsible for the operating model and metrics design — the people who choose what gets measured, and therefore what the organisation becomes.
Follow the series

Episodes publish as they are ready.

The series is structurally frozen and moving to draft. Episodes appear on this site as they are completed — no gate, no email required.

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Lakshmi Narayanan Narasimhan
Lakshmi Narayanan Narasimhan
Technology Executive · Leadership Practitioner · Author

Compass is drawn from 25 years of reading the dashboard and watching the customer relationship tell a different story.

Full story
The governing standard

The compass exists whether or not you read it. Leadership is the discipline of reading it.

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