HIgh Stakes Conversations

I wonder how many people reading this posting can think of one or more conversations they should be having with one or more people and have dropped the ball on all of these "talks".   I get an e-mail message regularly from some professional types in Utah (yep! they speak English in Utah) about difficult situations that require difficult conversations and how to go about it.  Often the situations have to do with workplace tension, but sometimes they are about personal relationships (friends, lovers and family members, ouch!) or other significant people with whom we have hit a roadblock in mutual understanding.  These experts promise "skills" at having these difficult conversations, and I have to admit that on paper their approaches make alot of sense.  But these same approaches are not so easy to carry out.  Why can it be so difficult to talk to another human being, especially when -and these Utah folks are right about this (is the air cleaner out there?) - the quality of our life often hangs on the quality of our communication with the people around us?