Qu'est-ce que la sécurité psychologique au travail, concrètement ?

C'est la conviction partagée qu'on peut prendre des risques interpersonnels au sein de son équipe sans en subir de conséquences négatives (Edmondson, 1999). Concrètement : poser une question naïve, signaler une erreur, exprimer un désaccord ou demander de l'aide sans craindre d'être humilié ou sanctionné. Le Psychological Safety Inventory en distingue cinq facettes : la prise de risque interpersonnelle, la confiance et le respect mutuels, le soutien organisationnel, la clarté de sa place dans l'équipe et le soutien du manager.

La sécurité psychologique peut-elle vraiment se développer ?

Oui. Ce n'est pas un trait de personnalité, mais un climat qui naît de comportements répétés : la façon dont un manager réagit à une erreur, dont une réunion accueille un désaccord, dont on reconnaît celui qui signale un problème. Ces comportements s'entraînent. Et parce qu'elle dépend aussi de l'organisation, comme l'accès aux ressources ou la clarté des rôles, elle se travaille également par l'environnement.

En quoi votre approche diffère-t-elle d'une formation ?

Une formation sensibilise surtout à la notion. Nous agissons sur les trois conditions d'un comportement, selon le modèle COM-B : la capacité (savoir le faire), l'opportunité (un environnement qui le permet) et la motivation (y trouver un intérêt). Nous entraînons donc managers et équipes en situation réelle, et nous ajustons ce qui, dans l'organisation, décourage la prise de parole : rituels de réunion, traitement des erreurs, dispositifs de soutien.

Comment mesurez-vous la progression ?

Nous utilisons le Psychological Safety Inventory (PSI, Plouffe et al., 2023), un questionnaire de 30 items validé auprès de 497 salariés au Canada, aux États-Unis et au Royaume-Uni. Sa fiabilité est très élevée (alpha de 0,95 pour le score global, de 0,82 à 0,93 pour les facettes). La mesure en début et en fin de programme établit ce qui a progressé, facette par facette.

Quel lien avec nos projets de transformation ?

Une transformation expose chacun à l'erreur, à l'incertitude sur son rôle et au désaccord. Sans sécurité psychologique, les difficultés restent tues et remontent trop tard. Avec elle, les équipes signalent tôt ce qui ne fonctionne pas, proposent des ajustements et apprennent en cours de route.

Sécurité psychologique, cela veut-il dire bienveillance et absence d'exigence ?

Non. La sécurité psychologique ne consiste pas à éviter les désaccords ni à baisser le niveau d'exigence. Elle permet au contraire de dire les choses franchement, parce que la franchise n'expose pas à des représailles. Une équipe peut être à la fois très exigeante et psychologiquement sûre : c'est même la combinaison qui favorise le plus l'apprentissage.

PSYCHO-LOGICAL SAFETY
PROGRAM

The essential foundation for teams navigating volatility: where psychological safety meets the science of high-performance innovation.

Let's Talk

SCIENTIFIC GROUNDING

Psychological safety is built through behaviors, and it can be measured.

It is the condition that allows teams to learn, innovate, and collaborate. It relies as much on the behaviors of managers and colleagues as it does on the organization of work.

Innovation

Because it allows individuals to take interpersonal risks, psychological safety unleashes creativity by eliminating the fear of negative consequences.

Sense of belonging

A meta-analysis associates psychological safety with performance, engagement, and learning behaviors at work (Frazier et al., 2017).

Inclusion

Psychological safety is strongly linked to a team climate that fosters new ideas and individual participation (Plouffe et al., 2023).

Trust and respect

By combining caring leadership and a climate of mutual respect, it establishes a culture of transparency and constructive feedback.

Format

A Scientific, Structured and Measurable Journey.

The program

Team trust is built, not given.

Psychological safety cannot be mandated; it is built through repeated behaviors, both from the manager and the team. We measure it using the Psychological Safety Inventory (Plouffe et al., 2023), which distinguishes five facets. We then coach targeted behaviors: inviting contradiction, welcoming errors, and asking for help. Finally, we act on the environment that makes these possible: team rituals, role clarity, and available support. This is the principle of the COM-B model.

Prevention or Remediation

Depending on your organizational context, activate this program in a proactive or curative mode.

Pragmatic

We develop this behavioral and relational competence at the heart of the action, for an immediate impact.

Measurable

We model this skill at the beginning and at the end of the program to measure its real impact.

Individual or Collective

This development program can be deployed at the level of an individual, a team and an organization.

Tailor-made

Browse the study

Scientific foundations

For whom?

A different challenge for every stakeholder in your transformation.

Sustainable performance and innovation

The higher you go in an organization, the less uncomfortable information reaches you. We help leaders adopt behaviors that invite contradiction and establish forums where it can be expressed without risk.

Getting your team to speak up, even when it’s uncomfortable

A silent team is not a team in agreement. We coach the behaviors that open up dialogue: asking open-ended questions, responding to errors without looking for someone to blame, and recognizing those who flag problems.

A climate where you can ask for help

Knowing where to find support and daring to ask for it are two measurable components of psychological safety. We make them visible by team and take action on both practices and support systems.

Talent Retention and Learning Culture

The Psychological Safety Inventory identifies five facets: interpersonal risk-taking, mutual trust, organizational support, role clarity, and manager support. You will know where to prioritize action and how to measure progress.

Agility and change success

Transformation risks are often known on the ground long before they appear on dashboards. We create the conditions for these alerts to surface while there is still time to adjust.

FAQ

UNREST at a Glance

OUR JOB

Setting the stage for your next transformation to succeed.

Because transformation shouldn't be driven in the dark, we model and build your teams' capacity to navigate upcoming changes. Our goal: maximize the success rate of your transformation initiatives while safeguarding your human capital.

Driving AI Adoption

AI adoption is less a technological hurdle than a human and behavioral challenge. Using the COM-B framework (Michie et al., 2011), we dissect what comes down to capability, opportunity, and motivation, role by role. We then adapt workplace conditions and practices, tracking usage nature and frequency before and after the intervention. The result: real, daily, and measurable adoption.

Delivering Strategic Project Success

A strategic initiative rarely lands on a blank slate; it usually layer onto ongoing reorganizations, tech rollouts, and shifting priorities. The pressure to move fast can mask underlying change fatigue and hidden execution risks. Before launch, we assess team readiness and conduct a pre-mortem to uncover unspoken friction. These insights enable clear trade-offs on pace, scope, and resource allocation.

Successfully managing a reorganization

Changing an organizational chart means changing managers, teams, and sometimes even roles for hundreds of people. We measure team readiness before the announcement, prepare managers to lead the transition, and then monitor the implementation of new ways of working. The goal: a living structure, not just a diagram.

Transforming your corporate culture

Transformations rarely start on a blank slate: teams are often already navigating other changes, sometimes leading to cumulative fatigue. We assess their readiness, evaluate the existing change load, and stress-test the project through a pre-mortem. This allows you to set the stage and make informed decisions on launch, scope, and pacing. Throughout deployment, we track targeted behaviors to guide necessary adjustments.

Building a More Resilient Organization

Strengthening your teams’ adaptability in these uncertain times is a strategic imperative. Yet resilience, much like agility, is not a personality trait; it is a set of cognitive and behavioral skills. As such, it can be measured and developed.

Bringing Your Organizational Culture to Life

A company’s culture is nothing more than the sum of its members’ micro-behaviors. We translate your core values into clear, measurable managerial routines. By shaping the work environment, we enable desired norms to emerge naturally and sustainably.

Developing your resilience and agility

When changes happen in rapid succession, teams wear out before they can adapt: shifting priorities, delayed decisions, and quiet disengagement. We measure their ability to withstand pressure and reorganize, then develop this as a core competency so they can navigate uncertainty without burning out.

Successfully managing an integration/merger

A strategic project is often added to changes already underway, and the pressure frequently masks team fatigue. Before launch, we assess their readiness for change and conduct a pre-mortem to uncover unspoken risks. This allows for better decisions regarding scope, pace, and resources.

Changing your business or operating model

Shifting from a product-based to a service-based, platform-based, or agile model changes everyone's work without necessarily touching the organizational chart. Habits from the old model often persist for a long time. We identify the routines that need to be replaced and design the conditions that make new practices easier to adopt than the old ones.

OUR TAKES