The Median Trap Workshop

Run the same prompt three times. Choose your favorite. Then find out whether you picked it, or just accepted it.

Your Input / Prompt

"Draft an email to our longest-standing client explaining a 12% price increase that takes effect next quarter. Give the real reason. Protect the relationship. Do not apologize for running a business. Be specific."

Bonus: Start a new chat and run the exact same prompt again. Keep both drafts open.

Your task: Run the prompt above in your own AI tool. Read the draft closely, then decide what you would actually send, as written, with your name on it. Work through the four steps below with that single draft in hand.

Session Timer14:00

Step 1 of 5

Capture Your Chosen Output

3 Min

Write down exactly what the AI gave you. Not a summary. The actual opening line, the actual reason it gave, the actual close.

The Opening Line How did it break the news? Word for word.

The Justification What reason did it give for the increase?

The Ask / Closing What did it actually ask the client to do, if anything?

Write Your Explanation

2 Min

Before you compare with anyone else, put your reasoning in writing. This is the sentence you'll test yourself against in Step 4.

Why would you actually send this draft? What specifically makes it the right message? Be as concrete as you were in Step 1. If you'd need to change something first, say what.

Group Comparison

5 Min

Now look around the room. Compare opening lines, justifications, and closings across everyone's draft. Fill in what the group actually finds, not what you expect to find.

Patterns That Expose Themselves What showed up in almost every draft in the room?

Where AI Kept Turning Which specific phrase, hedge, or excuse did the AI reach for again and again, across different people's chats?

Genuinely Different And Surprising What's the one draft in the room that didn't hedge, and actually said the real reason plainly?

Be Honest

3 Min

Looking at your explanation from Step 2 and the room's output from Step 3: was your choice an act of taste, or an act of acceptance?

AcceptanceTaste

Drag the line. Where did your choice actually land? Center — the median

Was it taste, or acceptance? Why? Use your Step 2 explanation as evidence, not your memory of how it felt.

Debrief

Untimed

One last round of honesty, in writing.

Which pattern did more than half the room land on?

What would you change about your prompt next time?

One thing I'll interrogate before accepting an AI's first answer

Your Median Trap Reflection

Assembled from Steps 1–4

Your Draft

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Your Explanation

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Where AI Kept Turning

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Your Placement

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Your Verdict

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