The phrase "a different direction when" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to indicate a change in approach or strategy at a specific point in time or under certain circumstances.
Example: "The team decided to take a different direction when they realized their initial plan was not yielding the expected results."
Alternatives: "a new path when" or "an alternative route when".
After this stint on Broadway, Mr. La Fosse contemplated leaving ballet altogether but saw his career take a different direction when Mr. Baryshnikov took over from Lucia Chase as artistic director of Ballet Theater the next year.
You often find when you talk to politicians from other parties that there's a motivation in common, even if your ideology and opinions take you in a different direction when it comes to achieving it.
He gave the French actors a few suggestions, in English, asking the woman to face in a different direction when she pulls up her stockings, and telling the man, "Remember, you've been waiting a year for this to happen".
The FT has the quotes: When there is a certain medium-term goal, it doesn't build confidence when one starts by going in a different direction When you want to climb a big mountain and you start climbing down the mountain, then the mountain will get even higher.
Towards the end of the night the conversation takes a different direction when asked what they think causes the violence.
Nevertheless, if humanitarian instincts pull the president and the nation in a different direction when chemical weapons are employed, then so be it.
You may have to reorient the headset a bunch, because you end up facing a completely different direction when you started and the thing gets confused.
And so it happened that the story of the line took a completely different direction when the simple but ingenious idea of having writing paper with white 'non-conflict' lines occurred to Swedish designer Olof Hansson.
But a new startup called Plukka, an e-commerce site focused on high-end designer jewelry, is going in an entirely different direction when it comes to group buying.
The segment took off in different direction when Homer was bitten by another spider and turned into a paralyzed Spider-Man with reversed colors, swinging around Springfield and fighting crime.
Evolution in a different direction began when the French mathematicians Alexis Clairaut in 1740 and d'Alembert in 1752 discovered equations for fluid flow.
