Don't Tear Down that Fence
- Richard Murff
- Jun 30
- 3 min read
Until you know why it's there
The last time I was in Target - a few years ago – some blank faced assistant manager was trying to wave me into a self-checkout queue seventeen people deep and snaking back across six or seven of the 20 or so closed cashier lanes. He had one phrase to affect compliance and it was so bland I can’t remember what it was. I left and now shop local where I can. Not to support Memphis, but local stores rarely have the economies of scale required to treat customers like they are being processed out of a refugee camp.
On paper both roles are customer service and one terrified automation is cheaper than several cashiers. In reality, the cashier provides a service and is hopefully pleasant about it, the automaton is blandly giving orders without explanation. So naturally, I hate him.
The view from corporate HQ isn’t much better. Companies are famously scrapping layers of middle management for AI decision making - making a shrinking cadre of middle managers responsible for a more decisions over which they have no control and can’t explain. At best, this exponentially increases the likelihood of employee burnout; at worst, revenge. Either is hard to catch until it’s too late.
Both cases are examples of tearing down a Chesterton’s Fence. Early 20th century writer G.K. Chesterton offered one of the most enduring principles of good-decision making: political, cultural or corporate. The “happy reformer” happens on a fence across a road and, seeing no purpose for it, declares that it should be torn down. Chesterton’s response is wonderfully irritating: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
In short:
“Don’t remove a fence until you know why it was put there in the first place.”
This isn’t to cling to the past, but merely think it through before barreling into the future. Businesses are littered with invisible fences. Some need clearing, some don’t, some are technical and some regulatory. A fair share of the banking regulation the sector is trying to scrap was put in place in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis. Regulatory fences cleared away in the 1980s were put up after the crashes that triggered the Great Depression. Time will forget the memory while preserving the rule. Which leaves the next generation convinced that they’ve discovered an unnecessary complexity or friction.
Ask the Follow Up
Artificial intelligence is brilliant at improving observable workflows and identifying inefficiencies in duplicate steps, bottlenecks and manual processes.What it doesn’t do so well is put these functions in the context of why they were there in the first place. It can only see the quantifiable patterns that it can see. Evolution is hidden.
Complex systems - even business systems - operate more like eco-systems than machinery where feedback, connections and context matter. Every fence protects something: efficiency, reputation, compliance or even the sort of catastrophic error that happens once a decade… or generation. Which is why everyone forgets what it was for in the first place.
Most initiatives to soup up a system ask the first question: What happens if we remove this? But fail to ask the second: What disappears with it?
The Field Guide
Before removing any long-standing process, habit or policy, try running it through a simple test.
The Origin: Who built this and what problem was it trying to solve? It was the answer to a question that once mattered. Find the question.
The Stakeholders: Consult the people operating within the process. Granted, they may be have a self-interest in preserving the status quo, but they may also reveal something that doesn’t appear on a dashboard.
The Replacement: If the original problem is irrelevant, or if there's now a better solution, then clear the fence. But replace it with something. Good reform is subtraction paired with design.
There's a broader lesson that applies to markets and even personal routines. It is easier to eliminate a bad habit after you know what itch it is scratching: Stress relief? Predictability? Control? Until you understand the original function, you're unlikely to replace it with something that lasts.
Know what's happening. Know what it's going to cost you. If your team is redesigning or positioning for a new market or product the biggest risks are often the ones hidden behind yesterday's fences. Drop the 4717 a line for a decision framework to distinguish legacy bureaucracy from hidden strategic safeguards before change becomes an expensive lesson.
