George Thompson was an English professor who became a police officer and developed "Verbal Judo," a method for defusing tense situations and gaining what he calls voluntary compliance, getting people to cooperate willingly instead of through pressure. The core is empathy, seeing through the other person's eyes, summed up in his acronym EAT: Empathy Absorbs Tension.
The Fundamentals
Thompson says five things are true of nearly everyone, and honoring them is the basis of persuasion: people want respect and dignity, they'd rather be asked than told, they want to know why, they prefer options to threats, and they want a second chance to make things right. His five-step approach to win cooperation: ask, set the context, present options, confirm, and act, with one pivotal line before acting: "Is there anything I can say to earn your cooperation? I'd like to think there is." And under pressure: stay composed, acknowledge then pivot ("I understand, and…"), because calm is contagious.
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Get the book: Verbal Judo by George J. Thompson on Audible.
Putting It to Work
Most tense business conversations follow a pattern: someone feels unheard, digs in, and the temperature climbs. The move that changes the room is the one Thompson built his method on. You go first with empathy. Before you explain, defend, or counter, show the other person you understand where they are standing. An upset customer who hears “I get why this is frustrating, and here is what I can do” softens faster than one who hears a policy read back to them. A stalled deal often turns not on a new discount but on the buyer feeling that their hesitation was actually heard. The discipline is hard, because your instinct under pressure is to push back. Verbal Judo asks you to absorb the tension first, then redirect it toward a shared next step. For CEOs and early sales teams, this is the difference between a hard call that ends in a slammed door and one that ends in a maybe. You are not winning the argument. You are keeping the conversation alive long enough to find the cooperation.