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COGNITIVE & BEHAVIORAL COACHING
Build the leadership and team capabilities your transformations depend on. Grounded in cognitive and behavioral sciences, our coaching expands the range of action available under pressure and strengthens the change fitness needed to adapt continuously.
but what you do when you don't know.
Jean Piaget
Executive coaching
Classic executive coaching approaches remain unclear: “develop your confidence”, “find your leadership”, “work on yourself”.
Designed for leaders navigating strategic decisions, role transitions or transformation, our executive coaching starts with real situations rather than abstract leadership models.
We identify the cognitive, emotional and relational patterns that shape action under pressure. Through structured reflection, behavioral rehearsal and experimentation in the flow of work, leaders explore alternative responses and turn insight into observable action.
Outcome: Greater clarity, behavioral flexibility and power to act when uncertainty narrows the available options.
How?
An 8-step process with concrete tools at each level:
→ Cognitive diagnosis : We identify the causal attributions and limiting beliefs that create your dysfunctional loops (cognitive matrix testing, constructivist demand analysis).
→ Measurable behavioral goals : No need to “develop leadership” but specific indicators, target behaviors, a tripartite contract with the prescriber.
→ Cognitive tools : Ellis ABCDE (identifying and testing irrational thoughts), Beck columns (situations → emotions → alternative thoughts), cognitive defusion, etc.
→ Behavioral experimentation : Intersession tasks, prescription of concrete actions, systematic debriefing at each session
What it changes in concrete terms: Un manager qui attribue ses difficultés à « je ne suis pas fait pour ça » (attribution interne/stable) apprend à recadrer vers « cette situation précise nécessite une compétence que je peux développer » (attribution externe/modifiable).
Result: You are not working on your “personality”; you are developing behavioral and relational skills that are repeatable in any context.
We are not doing personal development. We train measurable coping skills.
Team coaching
We use a structured cognitive-behavioral and systemic team coaching protocol. We work simultaneously on collective thought patterns, relational loops, and observable behaviors.
How?
A system with 4 levels of intervention:
→ Team diagnosis : We map the implicit rules, collective causal attributions, and feedback loops that maintain dysfunctions (Katzenbach & Smith model, actor matrix, 360° feedback).
→ Reframing collective beliefs : A team that thinks “we are not aligned because we do not have the right people” (external/stable attribution) learns to reframe to “our current cooperation rules do not produce the desired alignment” (modifiable attribution).
→ Measurable behavioral goals : No “strengthening cohesion”; precise indicators on decisions, feedback, information flow, managerial rituals.
→ Collective experimentation : Co-development (CODEV) to solve concrete situations, new rituals tested and adjusted, systematic cross-feedback between sessions.
What it changes in concrete terms:
- A Codir who says to himself “we don't work because we don't have enough time together” discovers that the real problem is the absence of common goals and clear cooperation rules.
- Individual resistances become signals about the team dynamics to be adjusted (sociodynamics: drivers, resistants, alliances).
- Changes are rooted in repeated and measured actions; not by fleeting “realizations.”
Result: Your team does not work on its “team spirit”; it develops repeatable collective skills: deciding together, giving each other constructive feedback, adjusting in real time.
We don't build team cohesion. We are setting up measurable collective coping mechanisms.
Organizational coaching
We work in systemic coaching: we simultaneously act on the structure, relationships and mental representations that slow down or accelerate change.
How?
We use hybrid intervention systems that combine:
→ Systemic diagnosis : identify feedback loops, implicit rules, and areas of homeostasis that maintain the status quo (7S McKinsey, actor mapping, 5 whys method).
→ Collective intelligence : mobilizing internal resources via World Café, co-development (CODEV), communities of practice. Your teams become agents of change, not spectators.
→ Cognitive-behavioral reframing : transform resistance into useful signals, bring out new interpretations of the situation (Appreciative approach, systemic reframing).
Result: your organization is not only implementing a transformation plan; it is developing its capacity to transform itself continuously.
We are not installing a change. We set up the conditions for a learning system.
Behavioral Capabilities Can Be Developed
A systematic review of 14 studies (Sarkar & Fletcher, 2015) shows that cognitive resilience programs significantly improve the mental well-being (d=0.78) and behavioral performance (d=1.0+) of employees.
Well-being
strong to very strong effects
Psychosocial variables
moderate to strong effects
Performance
very strong effects
R² = coefficient of determination
0.2 = weak 0.5 = medium 0.8+ = strong
Why Organizations Choose UNREST
UNREST combines change enablement, organizational psychology and behavioral science to assess what leaders, teams and organizations can actually mobilize when change becomes real.
