your listening skills. if you are going to try to imagine what it is like to be someone else, the more you know about that person the better. stop using the time when someone else is talking to plan what you are going to say next, and actually focus to what they are saying. and ask questions to keep them talking. (this has the added bonus of making you more likable, as it has been shown that people like it when other people listen to them).
as humans we are very poor at being objective about situations that we are closely involved with, and emotions usually play a much bigger part 