Book SummaryVerbal Judo, by George Thompson

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Verbal Judo

When two martial artists face off, their strategy depends on which martial art they’re practicing. In karate, a precisely timed kick or punch enables a person to stop another’s attack. In judo, which looks more like wrestling, movements at a closer range enable one person to throw the other off-balance and either get them onto the ground or use pressure to force them to yield. In Verbal Judo (1993), George Thompson explains that people also have different styles of handling verbal conflicts. He argues that in a high-pressure situation, it’s most effective to act as if you’re practicing judo: to use the other person’s energy to gently move them in the direction you want them to go.

Thompson (1941-2011) was a law enforcement trainer and founder of...

Verbal Judo Summary Why Do You Need Verbal Judo?

Verbal Judo is a practical method for responding effectively to confrontations, arguments, and conflicts. We all encounter conflict at work, home, school, and elsewhere in our lives. Thompson contends that how you respond in a tense situation can determine the outcome: Either it’ll strengthen your relationships and help you find a resolution that satisfies everyone involved, or it’ll undermine your efforts to solve the problem and leave you or the other person feeling frustrated, misunderstood, and resentful.

(Shortform note: While many of us prefer to avoid conflict, some experts see disagreement as a crucial tool for improving our knowledge. Conflicted author Ian Leslie explains that cognitive flaws like confirmation bias make us think we’re always right, so our reasoning skills often don’t help us figure out what’s true. Instead, these skills seem to have developed to help us argue more effectively, according to evolutionary psychologists. Leslie...

Verbal Judo Summary What Are the Principles of Verbal Judo?

Verbal Judo incorporates three basic principles that help you to communicate more effectively in difficult situations: empathy, a mindset known as mushin, and impartiality. Thompson explains that each one serves a different purpose as you navigate a difficult conversation. By prioritizing empathy, you can turn down the temperature in a heated exchange. By practicing mushin, you can avoid reacting impulsively when you feel the heat. And by adopting an attitude of impartiality, you remind yourself that the temperature isn’t about you. In this section, we’ll discuss each of these principles in more detail.

Empathy

The most basic tool for practicing Verbal Judo is empathy: the ability to understand someone else’s perspective, even if you disagree with them or their interpretation of the situation. Thompson explains that empathizing with the other person, no matter how unreasonable you might think they’re being, enables you to take the tension out of the situation. That’s because practicing empathy helps you give people what they want: to be understood. Demonstrating that you’re trying to understand what the other person needs and listening to what they’re saying...

Verbal Judo Summary How Can You Practice Verbal Judo?

Once you understand the principles of Verbal Judo, there are practical ways you can use them in tense situations at work, home, and elsewhere. In this section, we’ll explore how Thompson advises using Verbal Judo to handle conflicts in your day-to-day life.

Read the Other Person

In the same way that a judo practitioner responds to a physical attack with an awareness of their opponent’s intentions, you can respond to a verbal confrontation by reading the other person and figuring out who they are and what they need from the encounter. In other words, you can use empathy—which we discussed earlier—to better understand other people and more easily resolve conflicts. To do this, Thompson writes that it’s helpful to learn to recognize what kind of person you’re dealing with. He contends that people fall into one of three categories:

First are people who tend to cooperate and like to avoid confrontation. Thompson explains that you probably won’t have to use your skills in Verbal Judo when you encounter this sort of person. But he points out that the fact that someone cooperates with you doesn’t mean you should neglect to treat them thoughtfully or respectfully....

Shortform Exercise: Switch to a Judo State of Mind

Using martial arts as a metaphor for modes of communication, Thompson explains that it’s more helpful to focus on calmly redirecting the energy in a difficult conversation rather than to take an adversarial approach. But adopting that kind of stance takes some practice.

Think about the last argument, confrontation, or difficult conversation you had. How would you describe how you handled it? Did you stay calm and collected, or did you try to counterattack?