This is a Tyranny of Structurelessness sort of thing. In that essay there is a structure in structureless organizations but it's implicit and unarticulated which makes it inscrutable, potentially more malleable (which could be good), but also constricting to those who don't know the actual structure when they try and accomplish things.

If you don't have explicit specifications (which don't have to be complete before starting to develop code), you still have specs, but they're unarticulated. They exist in the minds of the developers, managers, customers, and what you end up with is a confused mess. You have specs, but you don't necessarily know what they are, or you know something about them but you've failed to communicate them to others and they've failed to communicate with you.

> you still have specs, but they're unarticulated

Most people call this "not having specs".