Campus Crisis: The First Summer School on Crisis Management for Businesses and Professionals

[Press Release] - Published on April 11, 2023 in Press Room

With the support of its network of experts, the ESEQ at the Faculty of Law and Political Science and the University of Montpellier’s Continuing Education Department (SFC-UM), which oversees professional training, are joining forces on this initiative. The first summer school on crisis management is scheduled for Tuesday, June 6, through Friday, June 9, 2023, at the University of Montpellier’s Richter campus.

Crise Campus is an intensive, multidisciplinary training program designed to help both seasoned professionals and newcomers broaden their perspectives, strengthen their skills, and exchange experiences with nationally and internationally recognized experts in their fields. It also provides participants with an opportunity to share best practices with colleagues from diverse backgrounds who face similar challenges. Professionals have until May 15, 2023, to register.

Highlights of this first Summer University

Seven workshops focusing on key topics: organization, the human factor, and communication

1. Decision-Making in Crisis Management: Resources for Understanding, Resources for Action
   In stressful and urgent situations, decision-making becomes complex given the sometimes significant challenges individuals may face. In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to practice structured decision-making as a team using the FOR-DEC model.
2. Before, During, and After the Crisis: What Can Communications Do?
   When should you communicate? When should you hold off? How can you prepare for the aftermath? Moving beyond communication clichés, how can you avoid missing the mark and align your communications efforts with the company’s real challenges?
3. Leadership in a Crisis: How to Maintain Control of the Team?
   While collective decision-making acts as a safeguard against expert errors, it can also lead to missteps and dysfunction in situations that demand quick thinking and sound judgment. When emotions, panic, and mistrust arise, how can leaders maintain control to guide the group out of the crisis?
4. Media: Long Live the Crisis! The Crisis, Seen from the Other Side of the Camera
   Epidemics, purchasing power, pollution, security, governance, and more—these everyday crises dominate media coverage but push other, deeper crises related to climate, energy, and resources into the background. How do the media set their priorities? How can we better understand their expectations in order to manage them more effectively?
5. Crisis management plans, Rex, BCP. Beyond plans, principles, and the implementation of organizational reliability, for the robustness and resilience of the company…
   If having plans were enough, no company would ever suffer the consequences of a poorly prepared or poorly managed crisis. Beyond procedures and ready-made solutions, what approaches can we draw from research on organizational reliability?
6. Media Training: Preparing Yourself or Your Spokesperson for an Interview
   An interview is a delicate communication exercise, but it is also an opportunity for a company facing a crisis—regardless of its role in the event. How should you prepare for this exercise?
7. Identifying Faint Signals: Monitoring Approaches and Tools for Detecting the Early Warning Signs of a Crisis Before It Erupts
   When a crisis strikes, we must react quickly and “as best we can.” At that point, it is not a matter of assigning blame or definitively pinpointing its origin. “Wars are won in peacetime”—how can we organize ourselves to identify weak signals that may be early warning signs of a crisis?

Role-playing exercises for an experiential approach

Role-playing exercises place participants in operational training scenarios to help them learn how to cope with pressure and immediate challenges.

1. What should you do in the event of a cyberattack?
   What are the first steps to take? What should you avoid? This exercise simulates a cyberattack and lists the "dos and don'ts" that the expert shares based on his extensive operational experience.
2. How to Handle Media Pressure
   Participants are placed in a scenario involving media pressure during a crisis. How can organizations manage the media while also dealing with a crisis that affects the company? How can they handle the pressure and the impact of information on stakeholders? This simulation provides an opportunity to review the tools and methods available.
3. Negotiating in the Face of Threats, Blackmail, and Aggression
   In this exercise, participants learn to adopt the right mindset and behaviors when facing situations of extreme emotional tension, where managing the human factor and demonstrating interpersonal intelligence are key.

Three conferences to gain perspective and prepare for the future

• Tuesday, June 6: Transforming with Enthusiasm! How to “turn a crisis around” by focusing on human capital
  Pierre Moorkens is an expert in neurocognitive and behavioral analysis, the creator of some fifteen companies, and the founder of INC Brussels. How to turn a crisis into an opportunity for growth by engaging the people affected by it—this is the surprising and hopeful theme drawn from the very concrete experience of an entrepreneur who is anything but a dreamer. Pierre Moorkens will share the keys to “transforming with enthusiasm.”
• Wednesday, June 7: From Special Forces to the Corporate World: Useful Lessons for People Management
  , Pascal Broquard, a former special forces negotiator and expert in human factors, shares his experiences and approaches to people management in crisis situations. Drawing on his latest book, “From Special Forces to the Corporate World,” he will discuss the lessons he has learned from 20 years of operational deployments and training within the French Army and will highlight potential connections with the corporate world.
• Friday, June 9: A Century of Cascading Crises? Welcome to the 21st century …
  Bettina Laville is an Honorary State Councilor, Founder and Honorary President of Comité 21, President of the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal “Vraiment Durable.” Despite numerous warning signs (the Brundtland Report in 1987, the creation of the IPCC in 1988, the first COP in 1995, the Rio Conference in 1992, and the Kyoto Conference in 1997), world leaders have failed to provide effective responses. Climate, water, agriculture, energy, and more—these crises are interconnected and foreshadow others. We must prepare for them and continue to try to mitigate them. This is possible provided we stop wasting time and accept immense efforts that will have consequences for economic activity, wealth creation, and incomes.

A tour of Hérault-based companies with extensive experience in risk management

To highlight its region and its unique characteristics, ESEQ is organizing an afternoon of behind-the-scenes tours and discussions with managers responsible for safety, prevention, and the management of complex situations at companies in the Hérault department. Thanks to its popularity during the summer and its high quality of life, the Hérault and its coastline attract large numbers of visitors every year. The region is home to successful companies that operate year-round, facing significant challenges regarding public safety, environmental protection, and corporate image. From industrial and recreational ports to tourism and leisure facilities, the tour will provide an opportunity to discuss risk and crisis management policies and resources in order to share best practices.

From special forces to neurocognitive science: 8 experts come together for the first time

In its pursuit of interdisciplinarity, Crise Campus is bringing these eight experts together for the first time in a single program.

• Pierre Moorkens.Expert in neurocognitive and behavioral analysis, founder of INC Brussels, a humanistic and efficient serial entrepreneur.
• Bettina Laville.Honorary State Councilor, Founder and Honorary President of Comité 21, Editor-in-Chief of the journal “Vraiment Durable”. 
• Pascal Broquard. Former Special Forces negotiator, expert in human factors management, and author of the book *From Special Forces to the Corporate World*.
• Eric Petiot. Air France pilot and flight instructor, expert in organizational and human factors.
• Ludovic Pinganaud. Managing Director in charge of Development at ATRISC, former lieutenant colonel in the professional fire department, former coordinator of the Interministerial Crisis Unit at the Ministry of the Interior, crisis consultant for BFM and LCI.
• Jean-Louis Caffier. A journalist who has worked for France 3, France Info, LCI, and BFM. A climate and energy specialist, co-founder with Jean-Marc Jancovici of the Entretiens de Combloux, and a member of the Innovation 2030 Commission chaired by Anne Lauvergeon.
• Léo Gonzalès.Cybersecurity expert, co-founder of Devensys. 
• Patrice Heintz. Expert in sensitive communications, crisis management, and human factors management.