The Buckley Method
Have you ever grieved to see decent, gifted, hard-working people humiliated in public by jackasses? Have you been one of them?
In 1984, a toxic gas leak in Bhopal, India killed nearly 3000 people. The tragedy was terrible. So was the seeming incompetence of so many high Union Carbide functionaries, who were paraded before the camera. They appeared never to be able to get their stories straight.
As Reid Buckley watched these decent men squirm and fumble, he thought how unnecessary that humiliation was. He began testing a workshop to teach executives how to express themselves with poise under duress. The result four years later was the opening of the Buckley School.
- Absolute candor: people pay to know exactly why they fail to communicate as public speakers or one-on-one.
- Total sympathy: we have all been there, we have all suffered from similar nerves and other problems.
- Tact: nobody enjoys being made a fool of; all instruction is gentle.
- Patience: some people are not natural verbalizers, but everyone can be taught to be better than he or she was.
- Personalized instruction---one-on-one, hands-on---seeking to dig out of each student what is idiosyncratically his or her special talent: there are no templates in public speaking, what's right for one person may be wrong for another.
- Practice: students are on their feet speaking, because the only way to learn is to perform.
- Nothing short of excellence: entreat, beseech, coax, beg, blandish, implore, exhort, cajole, badger, compel students to surpass themselves, because only by reaching for the stars can anyone hope to scale the heights.
Drawing from lessons Mr. Buckley has learned through forty years of professional speaking and debating, the curriculum uses active polemical confrontation as a teaching tool. For many, this is their first experience preparing a case they must defend, and the Buckley School faculty provide materials, strategies and support. Almost without exception, conferees find that team camaraderie and competitive fire combine to elicit the finest speaking performances of their lives.
At the Buckley School West, students receive intensely personalized instruction. Hands-on coaching by Mr. Melling and his faculty helps students identify and correct problems on the spot. Mr. Melling applies the successful techniques developed by Reid Buckley, who believes that "persuasion begins in powerfully marshaled thought, and thus great speaking begins with good writing." Though practice in extemporaneous speaking is part of the curriculum, the Buckley School encourages speakers to work from prepared texts and shows them how to craft and rehearse speeches. Coaches work with very small groups of students to polish these texts and strengthen delivery technique, drawing on each student's unique gifts and talents and applying Mr. Melling's constructive advice.
Located in Arvada, Colorado, the Buckley School West offers a unique method of teaching and a beautiful environment for learning. Conferees join Mr. Melling and the coaches for cocktails and eat at one of the area's historical landmarks in a region founded during the height of Colorado's mining boon, and that has maintained its historic charm. Here, conferees are removed from the pressures of the corporate world and can devote themselves to the demands of the Buckley School West while enjoying the spectacular scenery of the Rocky Mountains.
