In Stephen Covey's great book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", he talks about the 'emotional bank account', where you have to build a credit in your relationship with the individuals who you work with (and everyone else as well!).

If what you do isn't 'trustworthy', then all you have done in your gentle listening and asking great and interested questions to build, is to 'debit' your account. And if you do more of this than the credit you build, then you will never get your folks on your side. But what is trust?

You can't invest more wisely than by listening fully to what interests the person you are in conversation with. So, ask more questions about what they tell you. Easy as that - it