Gregor Fauma is a great ape, just like the rest of us. But unlike most humans, he knows better and talks about it in a thoughtful and informed way. In his keynotes, the behavioural biologist likes to run across the audience wearing a gorilla mask, screech like a chimpanzee and storm onto the stage. There, he takes off his mask and, dressed in a suit and shirt, explains to the astonished audience how the workplace resembles a troop of monkeys, what is expected of leaders, and whether AI complies with the laws of tool use. Fauma is an alumnus of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology, which was integrated into the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Society in 2000, and calls this phase of his career ‘100% responsible for what I do today’. His strengths are listening, good observation skills (due to his studies) and humorous communication, using words as a weapon or tool. When asked about his role in a nomadic Stone Age tribe, he answers without hesitation: ‘I would have been a scout.’

Since 2020, he has been a freelance (award-winning) speaker, rhetoric trainer and business coach. He has also written a book and columns, taught at his alma mater for many years and runs a food blog. You could say that he deals with the important things in everyone’s life at a very high level: communicating, storytelling, maintaining social relationships, eating and drinking. ‘I teach people how to speak in front of others and do so myself. As a systemic business coach, I help people break out of their mental hamster wheels and find their own solutions – using interventions from psychotherapy. I really enjoy writing. Sometimes I even get paid for it.’

He received the most important advice in Alexander von Gabain’s introductory lecture. This is also where he derives his recommendation for young researchers: ‘Do what you enjoy and what you are passionate about. Only then will you become good enough to be paid for it.’ The microbiologist and founder of Intercell gave the students a puzzle to solve over the weekend, and the entire lecture hall “grumbled like a class of pubescent sixth formers. He looked at the lecture hall in disbelief and said: ‘If you don’t want to think about a central question of your field of study in the morning after you get up and in the evening before you go to bed, it’s the wrong one. Because then you’ll never be good enough to succeed in it.’ That’s when I knew: microbiology wasn’t going to be it – despite the job opportunities.”

The zoologist was completely captivated by Karl Grammer’s introduction to human ethology, who headed the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, “because afterwards I couldn’t think about anything else. I devoured all the books and annoyed my friends with my theories.

His entry into applied behavioural research at the institute was low-threshold: “They were simply rooms where you could participate in research. We were a close-knit group of six students who pushed each other, fully integrated into the academic discourse. We studied literature, designed studies, set up and conducted experiments, summarised results in presentations – that’s where I learned and realised: I like being on stage. There were modern computers for image processing, we learned HTML en passant, while other institutes were still using slide rules.” The topic was mate selection, flirting and smell, and Fauma wrote his thesis on clothing as a means of non-verbal communication: ‘We spent Saturday nights in discos and clubs – that was our laboratory. We filmed people, took hormone samples from them, had them smell T-shirts. The BBC was constantly after us because the research we were doing was very contemporary.’

From his time there (1996-2000), he took with him evidence-based thinking, scientific discourse and the ability to ‘recognise bullshit’. The institute’s focus on ‘science for society’ manifested itself in research on the urban fabric, for example on water in public spaces or traffic management. Since only a half-time assistant position was ultimately available at the university, which was better filled by a talented colleague, he successfully applied his skills in human resources, body language, presentation techniques and media training. Later, he set up the training unit at the agency bettertogether and became a partner. He calls leaving a management position to become self-employed the best decision of his life, ‘because you are only responsible to yourself and are not subject to the uncertainties of employment. It also meant I could support my daughter better.’

Does his audience, all of us who see smartphones and AI as remote controls for our lives, have a sense that our hardware and software were shaped in the Stone Age? ‘No. You have to read up on hominid evolution and can only grasp it with a lot of self-reflection. But people enjoy listening to my stories, they nod their heads or have an “aha” moment.’ As a speaker, he doesn’t usually say anything new, even though he reads constantly to stay up to date. His USP is the explanations behind it all. “If I have a difficult colleague or boss, I can use this input to cultivate a more benevolent view of humanity and say: You can’t change who you are today, but we’re all in the same boat and we all tick very similarly.‘ Everything he says can be derived from evidence. He tears apart some much-cited studies in hot air, ’because that was the first thing we learned in the doctoral seminar.”

The question arises as to whether women* and men* benefit equally from his findings: ‘Not every workplace needs a silverback. If the group allows you to live out your talent because it benefits from it, be it in caring, nursing, fighting or providing – then you can fulfil this role regardless of gender.’ Rather, it is the case that we always bring our value systems into our observations. However, a successful life certainly cannot only be achieved at the top of a hierarchy.

He discovered his job as a keynote speaker after coaching numerous people for lectures and listening to himself. Gregor Fauma is an adult educator who combines entertainment with humorous provocation as a method of capturing his audience’s attention. Science is still his home, even if he has to adapt his language to make it more accessible.

In coaching, he works with clients of all ages, which leads him to a second recommendation: to engage in self-awareness as early as possible in one’s career in order to reflect on behaviour and thought patterns. This has helped him to control his cynicism and use his ability to recognise weaknesses in others more constructively: ‘I am firmly convinced that non-violent communication, a concept of human dignity and self-awareness belong in every school curriculum. Because this ability to not always follow patterns is perhaps what really sets us apart from other animals.’