Verbal Judo by George J. Thompson & Jerry B. Jenkins — book cover

Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion

George J. Thompson & Jerry B. Jenkins · 1993

Verbal Judo (1993) is a book by George J. Thompson & Jerry B. Jenkins on Defusing conflict. A former cop and English professor reveals how to defuse hostility and win cooperation with words alone, redirecting verbal attacks the way a judo master redirects force, instead of meeting aggression with aggression.

13 min read · 10 chapters · Communication

Why it’s on the shelf

Field-tested techniques for using words to redirect conflict and gain voluntary compliance under pressure.

Three of the ideas you’ll keep

The Clif summary of Verbal Judo pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first three.

  1. Respond, don't react: the moment someone's insult makes you angry, they control you. Stay in 'mushin' (a calm, present mind) and treat attacks as information about their state, not statements about you.
  2. Empathy is your most powerful tool. To empathize literally means to 'see through another's eyes', understand how the other person sees the situation first, because that absorbs tension and is the only thing that makes people willing to listen.
  3. Deflect verbal jabs with strip phrases. Instead of arguing back, acknowledge and redirect: 'I hear you, and…' or 'I understand that, but here's what I need…', you move with the force rather than against it.

The other 4 — and the full 13-minute summary — are in the app.

What’s inside: 10 chapters

The whole summary runs about 13 minutes, read or listened to.

  1. Words as Weapons: The Judo Mindset
  2. Respond, Don't React: Keeping Your Cool
  3. Empathy: The Most Powerful Word
  4. Know Your Audience: Three Types of People
  5. Deflect and Redirect: Strip Phrases
  6. The Sword of Insertion: Paraphrasing for Control
  7. The Five-Step Hard Style: Generating Compliance
  8. The Five Universal Truths of Human Interaction
  9. Eleven Things You Should Never Say
  10. Beyond Words: Voice, Presence, and Practice

Finish Verbal Judo tonight.

Read or listen to the full summary in about 13 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.

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