Calls for ‘system change’ and ‘transformation’ are everywhere right now. Many people feel that the societal challenges we face require big, generational shifts—so terms like “systems change”, “systems transformation”, “deep change” have become increasingly popular.
What does that mean practically? In a 2020 webinar on evaluating system and transformative change, Michael Quinn Patton noted that if changemakers want that level of change, they must be clear about two things: their theory of system change or transformation—how they believe systems actually change, and how their work will contribute to that kind of change.
This series introduces some foundational ideas and frameworks about systems change and transformation.
What this series is not
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An exhaustive catalogue of systems change frameworks; the field contains many overlapping models, lenses, and typologies, far more than any single series could responsibly cover.
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A comprehensive theory of systems change, particularly with respect to internal dynamics such as paradigms, identity, values, sense-making, emotion, or informal power.
What this series is
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A small set of foundational ideas and distinctions—drawn from widely used frameworks—that change-makers should be broadly conversant in when designing, supporting, or evaluating systems change efforts.
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Practitioner-informed adaptations of these frameworks, shaped by how they have been productively used in real-world change work across different organizations, sectors, and contexts.
So, these resources offer a starting point that practitioners should understand and have in their back pocket when working on initiatives aimed at deep, long-term system evolution.
Guides in this series
Click the dropdown to learn more and download each guide in the series.
1. Getting Our Heads Around Transformation
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It summarizes the most current thinking about how deep, structural change actually unfolds. Designed as an accessible primer, it helps change-makers build a shared understanding of what “transformation” means—and what it demands—from those seeking to pursue it seriously.
2. There Is No Such Thing as Fish
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This paper offers a sharper way to understand the different types of portfolios that change-makers can employ, challenging the common tendency to treat all portfolio approaches as interchangeable.
3. Is Everyone Making the Same Movie?
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This paper aims to highlight several frameworks that changemakers can use to think through, plan, and evaluate their efforts to change or transform systems.
4. Not Everyone Has to Play the Oboe
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This resource explores the wide range of roles required in systems change efforts, extending Meg Wheatley’s Two Loop Framework into a richer map of diverse contributions. It underscores that no organization or leader can “do systems change” alone and highlights the complementary—and sometimes contradictory—roles needed to challenge, sustain, disrupt, or reimagine a system. A set of provocative questions helps individuals and teams reflect on how they can contribute meaningfully within the larger ecosystem of actors pushing for and resisting change.
5. It Takes Time to Save a Rainforest
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This resource reframes systems change as a long-term transition rather than a rapid shift, emphasizing that deep change unfolds across multiple actors, strategies, and scales. Drawing on—but adapting—the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) on sustainability transitions, it highlights why systems evolve unevenly over extended time horizons and what it takes for change-makers to work more strategically across niche innovations, dominant regimes, and broader landscape pressures. It provides guidance for accelerating and stabilizing transitions toward more sustainable system configurations.
6. The Innovation Diffusion Curve Revisited
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This resource revisits one of the most widely recognized ways of thinking about how innovations spread and reframes it using more contemporary insights about scaling up, out, and deep, as well as different archetypes of spread such as replication, diffusion, and adopt/adapt pathways. It clarifies why different phases of spread require different strategic choices, capacities, partners, and narratives, and offers several practical insights on how change-makers can design and sequence their strategies to support the movement of innovations from early uptake to broader influence and deeper cultural or structural embedding.
7. A Compendium of Resources on Transformative Change
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This curated snapshot brings together a selection of influential ideas, frameworks, and resources that help illuminate the landscape of transformative change. It offers a concise, accessible “first stop” for practitioners who want to quickly get oriented to the theories, tools, debates, and emerging practices shaping the field. While not exhaustive, the compendium highlights sources that are particularly useful for understanding how deep change happens, what it demands of actors working within complex systems, and where to look next for deeper exploration.
