Chesterton's Fence Before You Tear It Down
Before removing any element of a system you did not build, you must first understand why it exists. If you cannot explain its purpose, you have no business taking it away.
"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."
G. K. Chesterton's principle is deceptively simple, but it encodes a deep respect for second-order effects. A fence across a road looks pointless to someone who sees only the road. But fences do not grow out of the ground. Someone planned it, built it, and had a reason. That reason might be obsolete or wrong but until you know what it is, removing the fence risks unleashing consequences you cannot predict.
Steve Blank observed this pattern repeatedly in startups. A new CFO arrives eager to cut costs and eliminates free employee snacks a trivial expense. But the snacks were a signal of company culture. Their removal tells early employees that the culture has changed, prompting the most talented to leave. The cost savings are dwarfed by the turnover costs. The CFO did not understand why the fence was there.
The same logic applies to "hierarchy-free" companies. Hierarchies have real problems abuse of power, suppressed ideas from below, political maneuvering. But they also exist because someone needs to make decisions and be accountable. Remove formal hierarchy without understanding its function and you get an invisible hierarchy, often led by the most charismatic or domineering person rather than the most competent.
Chesterton's Fence is not an argument against change. It is an argument against uninformed change. Things do become outdated. Systems need reform. But the first step is always to understand the existing system in full observe how it interconnects, learn how it works, and only then propose your modification.
Takeaway: Never remove something from a system until you can articulate why it was put there the reason may be more important than the thing itself.
See also: Goodhart's Law Corrupts Every Metric | Efficiency Is The Enemy of Resilience | Ergodicity Changes Everything | Shifting Baselines Make Decline Invisible