A lack of awareness of the purpose of work can often cause the work to be done in a way which harms the actual objective. This is because the internal group doing the work (without any insight into why or to what end) will have its own objectives and incentives that are distinct from or in conflict with the overall objective. In order for an internal group like this to function blindly, their incentive structure needs to be properly established by some other group with proper insight. So even if the people doing the work are blind to the purpose, the ones establishing their measures and controls cannot be blind.

This can work, and often seems to work well enough, but it also can fail spectacularly. See the recent Ask HN discussion on Google's 50 billion messaging clients.