George Thompson
Amazon Price: $11.16
List Price: $13.95
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: Harper Paperbacks
Amazon Marketplace: 43
new & used starting at $7.89
|
Buy at Amazon.com
|
Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Relationships -> Interpersonal Relations
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> Success
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> General
Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 45
Average rating: 4.0 of 5
Assumes the reader is a negative person 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.
I read this book to see what kind of material was being used to train police officers in effective communication, and to see if there was any material in the book that would be useful to participants in an anger management class I am teaching. There are some useful things in the book, such as the necessity of understanding a conflict from the other person's perspective, responding with what the situation calls for to create calmness rather than what your ego might want, and the time honored counseling technique of making sure that you understand what the other person is saying by paraphrasing it back to them and asking them if you have understood. It is also useful to point out that most of a message is in the tone of voice and the body language more than in the words themselves.
The book could have been shorter by about half if the authors would have spent less time hyping in the book how wonderful verbal judo is and how it is going to change things for the reader and more time just presenting the guts of what they have to say. This kind of self-congratulatory writing just seems feels like sales hype. I have already bought the book- quit the bs and get down to the substance of what you have to say. Additionally, I found it very concerning that the authors seem to feel that their readers will feel good by being negative, and that that is the reader's natural impulse. Let me share this quote in that context:
From a list of principles to keep in mind on page 220: "If it makes you feel good, no good. If you say the thing that makes you feel the best, nine times out of ten you are making a mistake. Sadly, it makes you feel good to stroke your own ego, to put somebody down, to tear into someone."
It does?
That isn't true about me, and I imagine it is also not true about about many people who will read this book. To make this assumption in a book that talks about communication skills seems like a pretty serious error.
Editorial Review:
Improve communication, resolve conflicts, and avoid the most common conversational disasters through simple, easily remembered strategies that deflect and redirect negative behaviour.
Verbal Judo is the martial art of the mind and mouth that can show you how to be better prepared in every verbal encounter. Listen and speak more effectively, engage people through empathy (the most powerful word in the English language), avoid the most common conversational disasters, and use proven strategies that allow you to successfully communicate your point of view and take the upper hand in most disputes.
