Via the Designing for Civil Society blog, originally from Jack Martin Leith, who also distinguishes a Worldview 3.0.

The text comes with a great graphic.

Excerpt:

Worldview 2 sees the “world is seen as an ecosystem. These are some of the main features of W2:

* Effective when the environment is complex, turbulent, unpredictable
* Organizational life is governed by democracy and self-management
* Plan-do-review
* Adult-adult relationships (interdependence)
* “Create what you want” mindset
* Innovation through creating value for the whole system
* Beyond the metaphor of “the future is a place, change is
a journey”

The W2 worldview is based largely on complexity science and the various branches of systems theory, including the cybernetics of Gregory Bateson.

This is in contrast to Worldview 1:

Worldview 1, in which the world is seen as a huge machine, has been the dominant worldview for the last 300 years. These are some of the main features of W1:

* Effective when the environment is relatively simple, stable and predictable
* Organizational life is governed by bureaucracy and command-and-control
* Plan then implement
* Parent-child relationships (dependence)
* “Problem solving” mindset
* Innovation through tools and techniques

The W1 worldview is based largely on reductionism (attempting to understand reality by studying its constituent parts), a mechanistic view of the world and a limited, linear model of cause and effect.“