Leonie Müller gets around a lot. You may even have met the digital nomad – on a plane between continents, on the ICE to Berlin, or on the highways of the republic. A year and a half after her trip around the world, the then student embarked on an unusual experiment at the beginning of 2015: She gave notice on her apartment, bought a BahnCard 100 and from then on was at home on Germany’s rails for several years. A decision that attracted international media interest.
The Bielefeld native processes her diverse experiences and research findings in her thesis at the University of Tübingen and in her first book, “Tausche Wohnung gegen BahnCard: Vom Versuch, nirgendwo zu wohnen und überall zu leben,” which was published in 2018 by S. Fischer, Frankfurt. Why are we the most mobile society we have ever been, and yet we are so inflexible in many aspects of (working) life? How free can and do we want to be in our everyday lives? What are home and home, and if so, how many?
“The voice of the mobile generation” – S. Fischer Verlag
After researching communication in new work environments in her master’s thesis at an automotive company and working as an employed management consultant, Leonie Müller is certain: a different working world is needed! Her mission: to make the world of work more flexible so that we can work in it in the best possible way, in the most innovative and best-motivated way, and so that we can live our lives and shape our society.
With her company IN TRANSIT, the communication scientist (M.A.) accompanies people and companies on their way into the new working world with systemic, agile and LEGO © Serious Play © methods, advises organizations in transformation processes, supports professional changes in coaching and inspires employees and customers as a speaker at company events. As Co-Founder of the Center for New Work, she is building a hybrid community that explores F. Bergmann’s historic New Work concept and its future.
Even during and just because of Corona, she stays true to her experimental mobile lifestyle: in 2021, she buys a 7-meter box van, in which she will live, travel and work full time starting in March 2022, once the expansion is completed. Leonie Müller also incorporates the learnings from her biggest craft project since building Ikea furniture in her latest talk.
Leonie Müller’s self-experiments, scientific research and practical work in companies make it clear how free we are through the possibilities of digitalization and how easy it is to see mobility as an approach to new structures and not as a necessary evil.
“New Work is not a trend, not an answer, but a big, important question: how and where do we want to work now and in the future – and what does it even matter for? Mobility is a big part of the answer – and yet more complex than we think.”
Lecture topics Leonie Müller
1. New work meets vanlife – what I learned about the new working world while building the new work van.
- Management consultant goes handicraft: Leonie Müller swaps her laptop and Post It’s for a circular saw and cordless drill in her free time to create her multifunctional living space including apartment, workspace and coaching space in a 7-meter van with roof terrace. The idea? To live, travel and work in it full-time. The result? An entertaining and inspiring journey for your audience, looking at the new world of work from a refreshingly different perspective. A talk that makes you want to actively shape your own work – including the opportunity to visit the New Work Van on site.
2. Relationship status? Location polygam! The unrecognized ingredient of the new world of work.
- What if the miracle ingredient of the new world of work was right in front of us – and we didn’t take advantage of it? That’s exactly what’s happening with our mobility, as Leonie Müller shows in this surprising lecture about the unrecognized possibilities of a well-known phenomenon. Mobility is not a symptom of our century; the movement and interconnectedness of people, data, goods and ideas is what makes us who we are and who we can be. And so remote work, mobile working and home office are not a trend of generations Y&Z, but solutions for the corporate and social challenges of our time – from climate to demographic change. A perspective-expanding lecture, suitable for travel enthusiasts as well as for office lovers and home office fans.
3. New work &. Co.: Does it have to be or can it go away? The future of work beyond the hype.
- New Work, agility and lots of self-organization: everyone is talking about these big terms, but what’s behind them? Leonie Müller guides us through the topics, trends and buzzwords of the new world of work, separates meaning from bullshit and humorously invites us to explore the future of our own organization and way of working in a curious and constructive way. Among other things: Why you can’t implement New Work and yet every organization should embrace it.
4. So tell me what you want, what you really really want: Purpose First?
- Purpose, meaning, intrinsic motivation: Nowadays, if you don’t know what you want and what you’re burning for, you’re supposedly stuck in the past. How should companies and their employees respond to the big question of purpose? Why is there much more to it than wellbeing and work-life balance, and could it actually be okay if not everyone burns for their tasks every day? A lecture that first slows down, then fires up – for Purpose without nonsense.
On the way to the new world of work? Don’t travel alone!
When the Digital Nomad, as she was dubbed in the press by the WELT, among others, talks about her observations and experiences, she radiates a spirit of optimism that makes listeners long for the future of work. In her talks, she blends her perspectives as a full-time nomad, Gen Y member, freelance management consultant and communications scholar into entertaining, informative and inspiring impulses that invite the audience to look at their own work and its future from an unusual perspective. Where and when do we work, how and with whom? How do work and private life mix, why is it becoming increasingly important where we work, even though we can work in more and more places? And why are so many companies forgetting about keeping our species analog alongside the hyped digitization of our communications?
Despite, or perhaps because of, her still young age, Leonie Müller (born in 1992) has understood how important it is to use mobility to shape new work paths and structures through it. In this context, mobility also has a major impact on our (working) everyday life, our identity and reality. In order to understand, integrate and win over generations Y and Z on the labor market, old patterns have to be broken down and new possibilities explored – and increasingly also in order to retain older generations.
The likeable speaker inspires her listeners with her young, fresh and innovative way of thinking, gets the ball rolling and cleverly sets the course for opening up new paths into the new world of work.