Affability

As professionals often need to interact with both colleagues and customers, it is important to be affable, such that people consider you friendly, approachable, and easy to talk to.

Affability usually starts with your nonverbals, as people tend to gauge other people's openness to being approached based on what they see.

To understand the nonverbals of appearing friendly and approachable, it's helpful to think of what you would do if you wanted to signal that you were not friendly, and did not want to be approached.

At a minimum, you would not make eye contact, and instead look at anything else, such as at the walls, floors, out the window, or at your phone. You might then fix your face into an angry scowl, so that if anyone were to look at you, they would think you were in a bad mood, and that if they approached you, you would probably end up yelling at them. You might then turn your body away, perhaps even showing them your back, so that they would think that you are ignoring their existence entirely, and have no interest whatsoever in meeting them.

Taken all together, if we were to imagine someone who was staring at their phone, had an angry look on their face, and was turned away from us, we would definitely not consider this person friendly and approachable.

If we were to instead imagine the opposite nonverbals, we would imagine someone making eye contact, smiling, and their body turned towards us. Instead of their hand holding a phone, their phone would be put away, and they might use that hand to give you a friendly wave.

Taken together, these are the nonverbals of someone who is friendly and approachable, and as a result, people would most likely feel comfortable approaching them to have a conversation.

Affable people make time for a conversation, tend to be great listeners, and are usually captivating storytellers. When approached, they give someone a warm greeting, shake their hand, and ask how someone is doing. They then genuinely listen to what someone has to say - not just pretend to listen and wait for their turn to speak. They engage deeply in the process of learning about the other person, understanding their perspective, and figuring out their interests.

When it is their turn to speak - either because there was a lull in the conversation or they were asked a question - affable people know how to tune what they are saying to the nonverbals of the people they are having a conversation with, so that they are able to maintain the flow of a conversation, always keeping a close eye on how people are responding to what they are saying at any given point in time.

After you have had a conversation with an affable person, you will tend to be in a good mood, as it was a positive social interaction, and most of us feel good after having a good conversation with a friendly person. Long after the conversation, you remember the person, speak highly of them to other people, and look forward to seeing them again.

Compare this to a situation where we are forced into a conversation with an unfriendly person, which tends to result in us wanting to be anywhere else, wishing for the conversation to end as soon as possible, and desperately looking around for the nearest exit.

Professionals are affable not necessarily because they are naturally friendly, outgoing, or extroverted, but because being a professional often requires that we work with other professionals, and may require that we interact with customers. When working with our colleagues, they will appreciate your being friendly, approachable, and easy to talk to; when interacting with customers, you will benefit from customers remembering you, speaking highly of you to other customers, as well as them looking forward to doing business with you.

Knowing the benefits of affability, but also knowing that some people find it very easy to be friendly and approachable, whereas others do not, the question then is: if you are not naturally a friendly person, how can you learn to be affable?

As with any skill, affability is something that can be learned through practice. If you don't consider yourself a naturally friendly person, first learn to practice the nonverbals of affability: put away your phone, make eye contact, turn towards someone, wave, and see if they return in kind with their own nonverbals.

For example, if you make eye contact with someone, turn towards them, and wave; and then they turn towards you, and wave, then you should approach them for a conversation, starting with introducing yourself, and offering a handshake.

There is still a challenge to being friendly in the modern age, however, as people have a tendency to look at their phones, instead of looking at the people around them. As a result, even if you are trying to make eye contact with other people, they may be so engrossed with their devices, they don't even notice you. While this is more of their problem than yours, you might still break the ice by walking up to them, and introducing yourself, forcing them to look up from their phone just to figure out who is speaking to them. If they also notice an outstretched hand waiting for a handshake, usually it's people's instinct to shake a stranger's hand - especially in a professional setting.

Provided you have their attention, you might then engage them in small talk - which is to say, light conversation about things that generally everyone is interested in. If they seem interested in having a longer conversation, then you should continue to engage them. If they seem to signal they are not interested in continuing the conversation, then you should say, "Well, nice to meet you," and you should move on.

One of the hardest lessons to learn about being friendly is that just because some people may not be interested in speaking with you, it doesn't mean no one is interested. There will always be some people who simply do not know how to have a conversation. When someone indicates that they don't want to talk to you, you should interpret that as them being uncomfortable with conversation generally, as opposed to them being specifically not interested in talking to you. Even if you did happen to notice them happily speaking with other people, and they only seemed not interested in speaking with you, remember that some people are quite introverted, and therefore find it much easier to have a conversation with people they already know, than with a total stranger.

Whether you are naturally affable, or have to put in the time to learn how to be affable, your goal should be to become someone others want to be around. People should look forward to seeing you, like being around you, and want to have conversations with you. If none of these are true, and instead people go out of their way to avoid interacting with you, just remember that affability can be learned with time and practice, provided you are willing to put in the effort.