The Not So Breakfast Show
Listen, laugh and learn as we share our latest thoughts about staying relevant, contemporary leadership and doing life right. Ish Cheyne is the Head of Fitness in New Zealand for global fitness juggernaut Les Mills. Sacha Coburn is the COO of Coffee Culture, a leading group of boutique coffee shops, and the co-founder of The Company You Keep.co.nz.
The Not So Breakfast Show
Excellence Should Create Growth, Not Entrapment
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Episode 267
Being good at your job is meant to be a good thing. Until everyone notices, starts sending everything your way, and your reward for being reliable is a to-do list that now requires its own project manager.
In this episode, Ish and Sacha unpack the curse of being the capable one — why high performers get overloaded, why leaders keep defaulting to the same safe pair of hands, and how something that initially feels like recognition can quickly turn into frustration, burnout, or career stagnation.
This episode explores what happens when capable people become the default solution to every problem.
Sacha reflects on hiring new people at Coffee Culture and realising just how much work had quietly accumulated around a few highly capable team members. That leads into a wider conversation about the difference between being recognised and being properly rewarded, and why praise can sometimes be little more than a cheerful introduction to another task.
They look at the issue from both sides. For capable people, the challenge is learning to set boundaries, manage upwards, clarify priorities and make sure extra work is actually leading somewhere. For leaders, it is about noticing when you are over-relying on one or two people instead of developing capability across the whole team.
Along the way, they cover realistic training simulations involving breakfast at night, why senior leaders make staff suddenly forget how to make coffee, the hidden thinking behind work that looks effortless, and the danger of being remembered only for the one plate you finally dropped.
Key Learnings
1. More work is recognition, but it is not always reward
2. Manage upwards by making the trade-offs visible
3. Over-relying on one star performer exposes a leadership gap
4. Work that looks easy may be hiding enormous skill
5. Hard work should be a deliberate choice
If you haven’t come across it yet, Working Genius is one of the simplest, most practical models I’ve seen for helping teams understand how they actually get work done. Not personality. Not fluff. Just clarity on where people thrive — and where they get frustrated.
If you’re planning your next team day, offsite, or work event, I’d love to bring this to your crew.
Find out more at IshCheyne.com