Organizations build what they’re asked about. Every regulator, auditor, rater, and board asks about the regime that leaves a record, so organizations are built toward procedure—and away from the capacity to recognize and act when procedure stops fitting (the discretionary regime). This isn’t a failure of the organizations or of the institutions asking. It’s a challenging design puzzle: how do you pose questions that ask about the discretionary regime without converting it into more procedure?

This empirical research program addresses this puzzle through the study of inquiries. Inquiries can be asked before incidents—in a supervisory examination, an audit, a board review, or a leader’s own questions to their organization—and asked again, differently, as organizations move toward conformity. They can also be asked post-incident to help unearth, rather than obscure, responsibility.

The objective is to elicit evidence of discretionary capacity without specifying it—so that organizations are encouraged for protecting the discretionary regime.