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Stories of Change: Multi-Level Perspective

The first film in our Stories of Change series featuring Multi-level Perspective: The Birth of Rock 'n Roll.

Explaining how transitions manifest through interactions between different levels of societal systems

Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) explains how transitions manifest through interactions between different levels of societal systems. We can use the MLP for systemic diagnosis--such as diagnosing complex challenges within societal systems such as mobility, housing or food. This Stories of Change video focuses on the seemingly sudden rise of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the 1950s, and our resources discuss how the MLP can help us understand the story behind this radical shift in the American music industry.

The film

Why frameworks and stories for systems change?

We use frameworks as part of systems change practice because they help us navigate complexity. Humans are visual beings, and we like structure. We are able to understand great levels of complexity, patterns and interconnectedness in this way.

Frameworks allow us to scan a situation, bring some things to the foreground and let others slip away. To move beyond the need to know or see everything and start seeing the patterns of things that matter for the work we’re trying to do.

There are multiple frameworks in the field of systems change across the world. We’ve started to curate some of them into a series of multimedia resources we’re calling Stories of Change, hoping to make them more accessible to people working towards a sustainable future all over the world.

The resources

The aim of this project is to create accessible resources to co-learn and help change agents to design more systemic strategies and action. This project supports system change facilitators to introduce systemic frameworks using stories of change in history to a wider audience.

MLP Facilitator Pack

This facilitator pack gives readers tools, worksheets and additional resources to host a session on the MLP.

Download Faciliator Pack

Webinar Recording

This webinar was recorded in 2020 with Anna Birney and our partners at DRIFT.

Watch Webinar

Special thanks to:

Garfield Foundation, Lankelly Chasse Foundation, DRIFT and Glider.

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