Chesterton Fence, a Leadership Mental Model

The B-52, call sign Czar 52, is flying straight and level just above the runway, preparing for a touch and go. You can’t hear it but the tower calls off the massive plane because there is another plane on the runway.

It’s June 24, 1994. The crew of Czar 52 is preparing for an air show. For one of the crew (not the pilot) this was his last flight before retirement. His family was on hand to record the flight. It should have been a great occasion. The B-52 is an iconic bomber and was in many ways the US Air Force’s cold war mascot. They still fly today and it is a thrill to see one in the air

On the video, the pilot pulls up and starts a banked turn somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 degrees, which is the safety limit of these planes. Then, pilot, Lt. Col. Arthur “Bud” Holland, tips the wings to 90 degrees. The plane turns hard. It seems impossible for such a massive plane to carry out such it feat.

Fairchild AFB, sits in the middle of the West Plains in Eastern Washington. There’s miles of flat open ground. There’s no reason for the steep turn, but Lt. Col. Holland has a history of pushing safety margins. His record shows at least eight safety violations in the previous three years. He seemed to feel that safety rules did not apply to him.

On the video, the stress on the plane is obvious as the wings start to flex. The engines scream in the effort to change their fate. The plane is perpendicular to the ground and pointed at the camera. The left wing tip appears to be only a hundred feet off the ground. It is amazing to behold, except that your mind tells you that this is impossible. Your mind is right. The plane has stalled and tips, nose diving into the ground.

The video continues to roll. Family members scream as flames engulf the wreckage.

Reports indicate that the crew did not know they were in a stall until it was too late. Even if they knew, they may not have been able to save the plane because they were flying too low. Another safety violation.

Alan Lacy also felt that he knew better than established practices or institutions. During his time as the CEO of Sears, he shut down an in house technical laboratory that safety tested all Sears brand products, from chainsaws and power equipment to gas ranges. He did this to save $7 million in operating capital.

Shortly after the closure, it was discovered that Sears branded gas ranges were susceptible to tipping over when objects were placed on the open door. This was a safety issue the lab was designed to catch. This safety issue resulted in a $546 million lawsuit and as many as 33 deaths.

The final case of meddling with established institutions without appreciating the second order consequences, impacted people around the world, including you and me. On November 12, 1999, President Clinton signed the act that repealed the Glass-Steagal Act of 1933. In 2008, the United States entered the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression.

The Glass-Steagal Act was part of the government’s response the Depression. The act created banking regulations that would prevent the Depression from ever happening again. Less than a decade later, the United States entered the Great Recession.

In all of these incidents, individuals or groups ran into a barrier, a fence if you will. Instead of taking a serious look at why the fence was there, they destroyed or went around it at the price of reputation, dollars and lives. In these incidents, the individuals did not heed the warning of Chesterton’s fence.

G. K. Chesterton was a writer, philosopher, religious apologist, literary critic and essayist. In his book 1929 book, The Thing, (a collection of essays) he wrote:

C. K. Chesterton

“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformers will do well to answer, ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly wont 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.”

C. K. Chesterton was a popular author in his time, influencing the likes of Neil Gaiman, Jorge Luis Borges, and Mahatma Gandhi. He wrote among other things, mysteries, biographies, literary and art criticism and essays. He was a reformer, but he wanted people to be smart about their reforms. He wanted reforms, but did not want to destroy everything to get it.

Chesterton’s Fence has become a mental model, a framework for decision making. Like all mental models, it’s not a hard and fast rule, but a warning that there is something to pay attention to here.

Is Chesterton telling us to never make a change? Of course not. Change is part of life, but you must understand what you are changing and the second order effects of that change.

This post is not about how to create change in an organization, there’s plenty of other programs and books for that, this is about whether you should make the change in the first place.

Fences are important. They don’t grow out of the ground. People build them at great effort and expense. Anyone who has built a fence will tell you that it is not easy. People don’t build them without good reason. People don’t create safety regulations, $7 million safety labs and complex banking law for no reason. Until you know the reason, you don’t tear it down. That fence may be the only thing protecting you from unseen danger. Taking down the fence could lead to disaster.

Chesterton Fences can be formal or informal. They can be part of the culture of the organization. Or the ways that people do things that to an outsider or someone new that don’t make sense, but to the people in the culture make sense. They are such a part of the surroundings, that members of the organization don’t even see them anymore.

In the Sears and Czar 52 example, it’s easy to see the fence and pain of going around or dismantling the fence. Less obvious is the pain of subverting smaller fences.

The second order consequences don’t have to be as catastrophic as these cases, but they

Removing a fence may start dominoes falling.

do exist and cause problems when fences are removed. Sometimes the second order effects of ignoring Chesterton Fences will be immediate or soon after as in the Czar 52 and Sears examples. In cases like Glass-Steagal, it may take a decade or more for the second order effects to show.

As you can see, once the second order effects start you may not be able to stop them. Be sure you know what you are doing before you take any fences down.

We’ve all encountered Chesterton Fences. If you are a supervisor or manager, you have definitely encountered them.

New supervisors especially want to show that they deserve to be supervisors. You want to make change and show the bosses how efficient you are. You look around you and see timelines that don’t make sense to you, so you bypass them and ask for inputs sooner than the timeline suggests, only to find out that your pushed up timeline wreaks havoc with other areas.

So, what do when you encounter a Chester Fence? It’s probably best to leave it alone. if you are determined to get rid of it, start by asking questions.

Understanding the fence may not be an easy matter. You may have to tap into the local expertise. You may not see the need for the fence at 30,000 feet, but you may be able to see it from a lower elevation or even ground level. You may have to check in with boots on the ground doing the work Ask the people involved why they do what they do. If they don’t know, ask the people downstream and upstream from the problem, may be they know.

Check with your organization’s historian to learn the background. Historians are rarely official positions. You may not realize it, but there are people in your organization who like to know the history of an organization. They often want context. They want to know the why of things. They may have found the stories about the organization and how things came to be. Whatever the case, find your historians and ask them about the fence.

They can be an excellent source for information about your Chesterton Fence. They may have heard the story or know the people involved. If they don’t know the why, you have probably sparked their curiosity and they will start searching for the information. If they don’t know, now they have a mystery to solve.

I am one of these people. I like to know the context and why things are the way they are. Perhaps it’s my love of history. Or maybe, because I’ve bypassed enough fences that I’ve learned my lesson.

You can also search your meeting minutes, especially if you have a rough idea of when the fence was built. Another good source along this line is to check news reports. If your organization is big enough it may be in national media.

You can also find a systems thinker in your organization. They will look at the whole organization. Because they know systems, they will probably be able to sort out the second order consequences of taking down the fence.

Your organization’s historian will look for clues

In cases like Glass-Steagal, there are history books that would have made the reason for the fence obvious.

If after all this, the answer you get is “I don’t know,” this is not license to tear down the fence. You may just want to leave it alone if the fence is not too much of an inconvenience. After all, someone didn’t build the fence out of boredom.

Many of the problems we encounter in life come as a result of interfering in systems we don’t understand. We march about without the self awareness not to wreck something beyond our understanding.

The mental model is not a blanket excuse that we keep all social institutions or antiquated laws. Remember, the last line of the model says,

“Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do not see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

There are some fences that need to come down. We can all agree that the institution of slavery was fence we needed to get rid of.

Chesterton himself says:

“This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious.

“There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease.

“But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served.

“But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.”

Be wary of the Chesterton Fences you destroy, for you may someday look at the “senseless monstrosity” in a very different light.

And you may be standing there next to Lt. Col. Arthur “Bud” Holland, Alan Lacy or the entire world, wondering what the hell happened.

Dennis Mossburg is a Leadership Consultant and blog writer.

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