Team syntegrity as a learning tool:: Some considerations about its ca acity to promote critical learning

Team Syntegrity is a systemic protocol designed by Stafford Beer for organising non-hierarchical and democratic conversations among a set number of participants. Contrary to those of other systemic protocols or methodologies, the rules or restrictions it provides are about the conversational structure, but make no reference to conversational contents. As a study of Paulo Freire's idea of critical consciousness reveals, while structure-based restrictions can help to properly deal with the views already brought into the conversation by its participants, they cannot guarantee that all the relevant aspects or views will actually be brought in and considered. The specification of some aspects of Team Syntegrity, however, such as the participant selection, and the roles of advocates, critics and facilitators, may still have some effect on the contents that are likely to be taken into account in the conversation. Therefore, they constitute possible sources for this protocol's future improvement. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.