Not The Bored Room is the strategic storytelling consultancy and storytelling skills training company
established by Peter Christie, aka Big Chief Talking Bull, in 1990. Peter can fairly claim to have helped
pioneer the storytelling in organisations movement in the world, having now amassed 35 years of practical
experience in the field.
Big Chief Talking Bull qualified with an MA in Industrial Psychology degree from Wits University, after
which he worked in the corporate sector for five years, with Ford Motor Company, the Chamber of Mines
and Liberty Life. Recognising the problems of poor communication besetting many organisations, he initiated
Not the Bored Room. The company’s work focuses primarily on strategic storytelling for creative corporate
communications, marketing and sales, change and transformation, and leadership development purposes.
The production of a full-length feature film, starring Embeth Davidz of Schindler’s List fame, for a
large insurance company, as well as producing many other corporate strategic storytelling videos.
The co-creation, launch, marketing and publicity of WorldsView Academy’s Nine Conversations in Leadership program,
including media engagement with radio and TV presentations.
The lead facilitation and project management of the local transformation of the world’s largest international IT
corporate.
The lead facilitation and project management of transformation communication for the local operation of a large
international paint manufacturer.
The authorship of the oral history, a 300-page publication, of South Africa’s largest car finance house, as well
as undertaking numerous other strategic storybook projects.
The creative communication of the corporate strategy of a massive telecommunications company.
The storytelling and leadership coaching of the CEO of a large banking institution, the CEO of large international
publishing company, and the CEO of a large health NGO, as well as numerous other executives.
The strategic communication of a huge power utility’s 50-year strategic scenarios to the organisation’s executive
committee and board of directors.
The facilitation of hundreds of strategic storytelling workshops for top teams of organisations across numerous sectors
- large-scale and medium-sized businesses, academic institutions, and NGO and other non-profit organisations.
Not the Bored Room engages with clients who are celebrating and commemorating key milestones in their life histories, such
as anniversaries, the achievement of major accomplishments, a merger or an acquisition, the retirement of a leaders of
leaders, and such like.
We then manage the research, writing, editing and production of a strategic storybook based on the client’s specific requirements.
The writing aspect of the storybooks is undertaken by Peter Christie himself. Peter has authored and edited numerous books for
the public, including lead editing (with Ronnie Lessem and Lovemore Mbigi) the best-selling African Management: Philosophies,
Concepts and Applications (1993), and authoring Stories from an Afman! (1996), Animal Firm (2000) with Craig Gordon, Every Leader
a Storyteller – Breathing Brightness into Business (2009), The Treasure Punt (2013), Inclusive People (2017), and The Charlatans
(2019). He has also published several articles in local and international journals, in both the academic and popular press, and
wrote a series of 122 short story newspaper columns for over a decade.
Peter has authored numerous strategic storybooks, the most recent being Building Better Lives Together – The story of HISP,
a rambunctious teenager and its tumultuous transition to adulthood (2022).
Peter Christie has lead facilitated seven International Storytelling in Organisations workshops, at Emerson College and Hawkwood
College in England, and in various venues in South Africa, and the Personal Leadership and Storytelling module for MBA students
at City University, London. As a part-time lecturer at Wits Business School for 31 years, he developed and facilitated the highly-
rated and popular Every Leader a Storyteller MBA elective, after having co-ordinated the South African Management Project at WBS
in the early 1990s, a project investigating indigenous approaches to leadership and management in the African context.
Not the Bored Room provides three different storytelling skills workshops conducted on a public and an in-house basis. Please see
details for our Every Leader a Storyteller, Story Spirit, and Authoring Your Life Story under the Workshops tab .
Phone: 073 236 0305
Email: bigchief@nottheboredroom.co.za
Address: 18 Hippocrates Avenue, Hospital Park,
Bloemfontein, 9301, South Africa
LinkedIN: BigChiefTalkingBull