When people talk about “transformation,” it often sounds like branding. A slide deck. A slogan. This conversation was not that.
What emerged between Luise Raaschou and Felix Braun of Mercedes-Benz Vans Europe was a very practical, very honest roadmap for how a large, traditional, high-pressure organization can become more human, more intelligent, and actually more effective — without waiting for a miracle from the top. Here are the core lessons.
1. Regeneration is the opposite of extraction
Inside Mercedes-Benz Vans, regeneration is not a buzzword. It’s a standard: “Leave systems, processes, and structures better than you found them.”
Felix Braun, a senior leader in the Vans division, framed it even more simply: regeneration is the opposite of exploitation. In human terms: are we running people, teams, and the institution in a way that drains them for output? Or in a way that keeps them energised and capable long-term?
Practically, that means:
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People need cycles. Not just “rest days” but moments in the workday and workweek where they can step back, breathe, reflect, and come back with clarity.
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Pressure is not the enemy. Constant pressure with no recovery is.
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The organization has a duty to create conditions where people can stay in balance — because if people are fully depleted, the institution is already in crisis.
For the UN, that lands very directly. The UN is full of people who are mission-driven but exhausted. Regeneration says: mission cannot be sustained on exhaustion. It’s not weakness to say that. It’s systems design.
2. The spark didn’t come from a strategy paper. It came from a human boundary.
The shift at Mercedes-Benz Vans did not start because HQ launched a “Transformation Initiative.” It started because one leader — Luise Raaschou — hit a limit.
By all conventional measures she had “made it”: high-performing team, trust from leadership, happy partners, even happy controllers. And still she said: “I can’t keep doing it like this.”
That moment could have ended in a resignation email.
Instead, leadership got curious.
Felix (then her managing director) did something subtle but radical: he didn’t try to convince her to stay by promising status. He tried to understand why someone who loved the work was prepared to walk away from it.
That conversation became the doorway for change.
What’s important here for UN teams:
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Transformation often starts because someone says “this way of working is not humane anymore.” That person is not “difficult.” That person is a sensor.
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Instead of defending the system (“that’s just how the UN works”), leaders can ask: what is this person seeing that leadership isn’t seeing fast enough?
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The first act of regenerative leadership is not to fix. It’s to listen.
3. Don’t pitch an ideology. Start with small, concrete practices.
When Luise first brought this forward, she didn’t show up with a 40-page theory of regenerative leadership. She showed up with a handful of very specific, doable shifts in how people work together.
No 10-point “transformation plan.”No re-org chart.No “cultural realignment initiative.”
Instead: “Let’s change how we meet. Let’s change how we listen. Let’s change how we solve problems. Let’s change how we hold responsibility.”
The programme that emerged became known internally as “New Ways of Working.” It wasn’t rolled out as “Here is The Answer.” It was co-created, tested on real teams, refined, and shared.
For the UN, that’s gold:
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You don’t need to rename your office.
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You don’t need a Secretariat bulletin.
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You can start with ways of working inside your own unit and let the results speak for themselves.
Regeneration spreads by evidence, not by mandate.
4. Build around four pillars (and let teams enter where they are)
As the work evolved and spread from Denmark and Sweden to other European markets, the teams at Mercedes-Benz Vans organized their regenerative shift around four practical pillars:
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MindsetInternal orientation. How do we show up? What assumptions do we carry about control, performance, and each other? Do we act from fear and scarcity or from purpose and mutual trust?
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Collective IntelligenceStop pretending the smartest answer lives in one person or one unit. Create structures where different perspectives actually shape decisions. Not as a courtesy, but because it’s more effective.
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Organism (ways of working)Treat the organization like a living system, not a machine. They drew from agility, sociocracy, and iterative cycles — but in a human way, not as rigid “we must now do sprints” theatre.
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EcosystemWork as part of an interconnected field, not a silo. See partners, markets, other country offices as part of one living whole. Ask: how do we relate, learn, and adapt together?
Here’s the important design choice: each location, each team chose where to enter. Some started with mindset, some with new collaboration formats, others with ecosystem thinking. No “one size fits all maturity model.” No shaming of teams that “aren’t ready.”
For the UN: imagine if country offices, agencies, and clusters could adapt regenerative practices to their reality — instead of being pressured to “comply” with a headquarters template developed in a different political economy. That freedom to localize the practice is part of why it stuck.
5. It was voluntary, not forced
This part cannot be overstated.
Participation in the “new ways of working” was not mandatory.
Nobody was told: “From Monday you are now a regenerative leader.” That would have killed it.
Instead:
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People were invited.
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Ambassadors were nominated from each market — not to “roll out corporate culture,” but to listen, surface needs, and co-create.
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Those who resonated came in. Those who didn’t weren’t demonized.
Why this matters in the UN:
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In any mission, agency, or inter-agency process, there are staff who are hungry for this — and staff who are scared of it, suspicious of it, or simply busy surviving. Forcing the second group will create resistance that drains everyone.
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Let the early adopters generate proof of life. Let the work speak through energy, not through policy notes alone.
People follow energy.
6. You can measure this — but not only with spreadsheets
One predictable pushback inside Mercedes-Benz was: “Where’s the Excel sheet? Show us the KPIs.”
Because in a technical, engineering-driven culture, if you can’t measure it, you can’t defend it.
Here’s what they did:
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They tracked engagement. Not just “satisfaction,” but signs of ignition: are people showing up for things they weren’t ordered to? Are they contributing energy voluntarily?
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They tracked speed of ideas: Are solutions emerging faster? Are they driven by more than one brain? Are decisions getting stuck less in hierarchy?
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They tracked quality of collaboration: Are meetings generating new thinking across functions, or just repeating reporting lines?
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And yes, they continued to monitor performance.
In other words: the “soft stuff” became part of the performance story.
This is directly transferable to the UN:
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We already collect “pulse surveys,” stress surveys, After Action Reviews, mission learning, etc. But those often get buried because they’re treated as HR paperwork, not operational intelligence.
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Regenerative leadership reframes morale, trust, psychological safety, and collaboration speed as operational indicators.
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If staff are collapsing, programme delivery is in danger. That’s not “emotional.” That’s operational risk.
7. Leadership’s job is to hold space and protect the experiment
Felix described his role not as “driving the transformation,” but as sponsoring and protecting it.
That’s a shift in posture:
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He didn’t impose content.
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He didn’t brand himself as “the visionary architect.”
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He created conditions so the people closest to the work could test new patterns without being shut down.
He also named the leadership move that scares most senior managers in hierarchical systems: letting go of control.
But that “letting go” wasn’t abandonment. It was trust-building:
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Agree together on purpose.
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Agree on what kind of legacy you want to leave as a leadership team.
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Build trust by being transparent, human, and consistent.
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Then step back enough so others can act, shape, and take ownership.
For the UN, especially in crisis settings: this is huge.Because many managers in volatile contexts default to command-and-control for speed. It feels safer. It feels efficient. But in reality, it often shuts down intelligence from the edges — which is exactly what’s needed in fast-moving, high-risk environments.
Regenerative leadership says: in complexity, you cannot afford to choke off distributed intelligence.
8. Energy is real data
One of the most striking “metrics” Felix mentioned is beautifully simple:Do people leave the meeting with more energy than they came in with?
If yes, something is working.If no, you’re bleeding life force.
That sounds soft. It’s not.
An exhausted system makes poorer decisions, gets slower, becomes reactive, loses moral courage, and starts treating communities and partners as “tasks.”
A generative system — even in stress — stays lucid, collaborative, creative, and morally awake.
For the UN, where people are holding trauma, negotiation pressure, media scrutiny, political heat, and impossible timelines: checking the energy of the team is not a luxury ritual. It’s situational awareness.
9. Crisis work still needs humanity, not just logistics
Both guests spoke directly to working under intense, volatile conditions. The lesson was not “toughen up.”
It was:
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Slow down enough to notice what the people in the crisis are carrying — including your own staff.
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Make time for listening, not just briefing.
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Recognize there is a healing dimension to recovery. You’re not only rebuilding assets and infrastructure. You’re rebuilding nervous systems, trust, and social fabric.
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Accept that you can’t just “snap back to normal.” Regeneration includes cycles: breakdown → renewal → new possibility. Letting some things die is part of allowing something more intelligent to emerge.
For UN staff working in or after conflict or disaster, this lands like truth. Rebuilding without tending to trauma is not recovery. It’s cosmetic.
10. Vulnerability is not weakness. It’s intelligence.
A big piece of their practice is extremely basic and extremely radical: check-ins.
“How are you right now, on a scale of 1 to 5?”“What one word do you leave this meeting with?”
Not as icebreakers. As diagnostic practice.
Because:
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Naming how people actually are lowers the quiet pressure to armour up.
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When people can show up as human, they are less likely to sabotage, withdraw, or burn out silently.
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And you create conditions where people can tell the truth faster.
In UN culture, where professionalism is often (understandably) linked to composure under stress, this is a revolution: allowing humanness without losing competence.
The message here is not “turn the UN into a group therapy circle.” The message is: emotional reality is already in the room. You can either work with it consciously and safely, or let it run underground and break you later.
11. You are part of something living
One of Felix’s key reflections may be the most important for the UN.
He urged leaders, in any institution, to stop thinking of the organization as a machine and start seeing it as an organism — a living system.
That means:
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Everything is connected.
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Your unit is not “your unit.” It is a cell in a larger body.
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Culture is not an HR product. It’s the health of the organism.
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Each person carries culture into their home country, their network, their government relations. Staff are not just staff. They’re also carriers of possibility.
In UN language: staff are not only deliverers of programming. They are agents of prevention. A healthier UN culture is not an internal luxury. It’s literally crisis prevention capacity.
If the inside is toxic, the outside work will struggle to be healing.
If the inside is regenerative, the UN becomes a force for stability and possibility before the next fire starts.
12. The first 100 days of a regenerative leader (any level, any title)
If someone were “UN Secretary-General of Regeneration,” their first moves, based on this conversation, would not be a new doctrine. They would be:
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Listen deeply to staffNot just for data, but for truth. Ask: Where are we exhausted? Where are we alive?
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Experience it, don’t just read itGet leadership (including yourself) physically into spaces where they can feel what regenerative leadership looks like — in nature, in circle, in honest conversation. This is about embodiment, not PowerPoint.
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Name the shared purposeWhat are we actually here to do — beyond bureaucracy, beyond survival, beyond optics? Say it out loud together. Often.
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Protect pockets of practiceFind the places in the system where people are already working regeneratively. Shield them. Resource them. Let them teach others. Don’t crush them with compliance.
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Normalize humanityBring in practices that let people show up as human without fear of punishment. That alone will unlock intelligence.
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Shift from firefighting to preventionSee regeneration as a preventative force, not just a recovery tool. A system that can heal itself while it works is less likely to collapse into crisis.
13. The quiet, grounding truth
At the end of the conversation, Luise said something devastatingly clear.
She said: at the end of the day, she just wants to be able to look at her child and say, “I did something where I was.”
That’s the heart of this.
Regeneration is not an abstract theory of institutional evolution.
It’s the choice to make the place you already are — your office, your duty station, your team, your meeting, your five people — more alive, more honest, more capable of producing good for the world without destroying the people doing the work.
That’s it.
Not save the UN overnight.Not fix global governance in one heroic act.
Make where you are less extractive and more life-giving.
And let that spread.
Follow the Guests: Find Luise Raaschou on LinkedIn to learn more about her ongoing journey of regenerative leadership inside Mercedes-Benz Vans.