Episode 91: limiting metaphors
Listen here or wherever you pod:
Watch the video interview on YouTube:
Looking Outside is for curious people looking for a fresh take on familiar topics, in business and beyond.
On this episode of Looking Outside we peek into the metaphors, imagery and stories that unknowingly shape the limitations of our business strategy, and limit our ambitions. UNESCO chair of futures, Sohail Inayatullah has seen this many times before - from brands rethinking positioning, CEOs shifting cultural capability, to government leaders reshaping coalitions. In each case, when we dig deeper to the metaphor we hold for ourselves, we gain visibility of what limits our worldview, and the bars that guard us from transformational change. Sohail stresses that a strategy can easily change based on the story you tell others, but it’s uncovering the story you tell yourself as a leader that, while uncomfortable, is the true unlocker of new possibilities for the future.
To look outside, Sohail turns to macro history. He finds so much time is spent analyzing current events and issues that seem novel, we miss that these are patterns from the past.
Sohail is a political scientist and futurist, the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at the Sejahtera Centre for Sustainability and Humanity, IIUM, Malaysia. He is also Professor at Tamkang University, Tamsui and Associate, Melbourne Business School, the University of Melbourne. He teaches from www.metafutureschool.org where his courses include Become a Futurist and Personal Futures: the CLA of the Self. He is listed in the top two percent of the world's scientists as measured by the highest impact of citations.
Recent presentations include speeches and workshops for the Asian Development Bank, Manila; Futuribles, Paris; the Pakistan Airforce, Islamabad; Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, Copenhagen; Logan City Council, Logan; Pearls of Policing, Montreal; the Office of the PM, Government of Australia, Canberra; United Nations Staff College; Asia-Pacific Futures Network; Studio Dojo, Singapore; Riser Futures, Toronto; Global Association of Neohumanist Educators, Romania; African Brain Health Network, online; Future Days, Lisbon; Queensland Health Cairns; and the Italian Institute for the Future, Naples.
His recent books include Aeon and Mewtronix – A Futures Tale (2024), CLA 3.0: 30 Years of Transformative Research (2022), Infectious Futures (2022) and The End of the Cow and Other Emerging issues (2022)
More on Sohail:
All views are that of the host and guests and don’t necessarily reflect those of their employers. Copyright 2026. Theme song by Azteca X.
