Jeanne wrote: " Who among you have had really hard political groups? Any words of wisdom?"

Jeanne,

As a suggestion:

1. Agree the agenda. If everyone agrees that they need a facilitator, establish what such a facilitator is to facilitate. Have each group/person prioritise the issues they want resolved. Tally the result and get parties to agree to the issues based on response frequency. The length/breadth/scope of issues will help define timeframe, and method of facilitation (workshop, retreat, on-going process etc)

2. Get agreement on character of outcome sought on each issue. That is, do stakeholders want to air attitudes; resolve issue; obtain unity; develop policy; etc? Each of these outcomes implies a slightly/largely different process. It also ensures that people understand what is expected of them rather than go into a facilitation process with an entirely different set of expectations.

3. Once you establish what issues will be facilitated, then develop a suggested facilitation process to suit the issues and complexity agreed. Circulate the process to stakeholder for their agreement. Iterate process based on feedback, and get "sign off" from stakeholders to their agreement on the process.

4. You may also need to establish authority for certain people/parties to represent entire groups to the debate and an agreement in principle that those parties nominated are empowered to agree on the issues in question, and that non-participating stakeholders agree to accept the outcomes from the facilitation process they have/will agreed to.

5. Commence traditional facilitation process.