Based on original research with leaders at 150+ companies, including Amazon, Google, and LinkedIn.

Don’t lose your team’s best work to distraction and burnout.

With Pause, you won’t.

Get 3X more of your team’s energy onto priority work.

Featured in:

Forbes logo, featuring an interview with Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World author Shawn Vanderhoven.
Publishers Weekly logo for its review of Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World by Shawn Vanderhoven with Anne Vanderhoven.

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Praises for Pause

  • Will Guidara, New York Times bestselling author of Unreasonable Hospitality, endorses Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World

    “You cannot create a culture of hospitality if your people are not given the space to care deeply, think clearly, and be fully present. Pause shows leaders how to create that space—and why doing so has never been more important.”

    WILL GUIDARA

    New York Times bestselling author of Unreasonable Hospitality

  •     Financial Times review of Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World by Shawn Vanderhoven with Anne Vanderhoven

    “Can’t focus on what matters, or even decide what the priority should be? This zippy read offers practical strategies for slowing down and identifying goals.”

    FINANCIAL TIMES

  • Daniel Pink, author of Drive

    “The Vanderhoven’s name something every overwhelmed professional feels but often can't articulate: the invisible wake of digital detritus that managers mindlessly create for their teams. PAUSE is a sharp, research-backed argument for why the best leaders tap the brakes—and how to do it without losing momentum.”

    DANIEL H. PINK

    #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drive

  •     Publishers Weekly review of Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World by Shawn Vanderhoven with Anne Vanderhoven

    “Filled with useful tips and memorable case studies, this will bring relief to organizations feeling lost in a sea of diversions." 

    PUBISHERS WEEKLY

  • Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor

    “You can’t get your team’s attention if you yourself are driven to distraction. Vanderhoven gives you the tools you need to focus on the things that matter. Essential!”

    KIM SCOTT
    New York Times Bestselling Author of Radical Candor

  • Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit

    "I've spent years writing about the power of questions. But for good questions to make a difference, there needs to be space to hear them. This book helps you create space and time to have more impact."

    MICHAEL BUNGAY STANIER
    International Bestselling Author of The Coaching Habit

  • Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers

    “This book isn’t just a theory. Shawn did the work to find out what leaders are doing to lead great work instead of driving teams to burnout.”

    LIZ WISEMAN
    New York Times Bestselling Author of Multipliers

Download the first chapter of Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World

Read Chapter 1

Cartoon for Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World showing a manager spraying an employee with a fire hose of work, emails, messages, and notifications while she shields herself with a productivity book.

A field guide for leaders drowning in demands but on the hook for results

You’re leading in an environment that eats focus for breakfast. A boss addicted to speed. The pressure to adopt AI and do more. Nonstop collaboration. Your team’s talent and time is slipping between the cracks. You need high-quality work on the big projects, but the gravitational pull of busyness makes it nearly impossible.

So you turn to productivity books for answers. But individual productivity hacks don’t survive the first meeting on Monday. You look to leadership books, but organizational overhauls are too big for most managers to pull off. You’re stuck in the middle, and it's maddening.

THE PRODUCTIVITY PROBLEM IS SOCIAL

No personal productivity system can overcome a workplace designed to interrupt you. Pause is the way out. Most productivity advice focuses on the individual. Pause focuses on the environment leaders create around them. It puts the solution at your fingertips. Every chapter comes with ready-to-use tools and step-by-step practices you can bring to your team right away. Early readers are calling it one of the highest-utility books they’ve ever used at work. You’ll learn how to slow down strategically so your team can go faster on what counts. Our research shows that leaders who know how to Pause triple their team’s focus on priority work.

And right now, the stakes are higher than ever. Adopting and leveraging AI is paramount. But learning new tools requires the cognitive bandwidth your team simply doesn't have. With Pause, you’ll create the space your team needs to leverage AI instead of it becoming just another demand.

The pressure to do more isn’t going away. But your team's best work doesn’t have to disappear into the noise.

Order In the US

Not in the US?

Available now or coming soon in 39 countries

About the Authors

Shawn Vanderhoven, author of Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World and keynote speaker

Shawn Vanderhoven is the author of the USA Today bestseller Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World and a Partner at The Wiseman Group, where he leads the executive development practice for senior leaders and rising talent. He is also a collaborator on the New York Times bestseller Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (Second Edition).

Shawn co-designs executive development strategies that help organizations amplify their most valuable asset: their people. He has advised leaders at organizations including Amazon, Alphabet, Adobe, Capital One, Deloitte, McKinsey, Microsoft, and Salesforce.

He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Anne. His work focuses on helping leaders create the conditions where people can focus on what matters most and do their best work.

Anne Vanderhoven, co-author of Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World

Anne Vanderhoven is a writer, researcher, and co-founder of the consulting firm UP. She studies how leaders create the conditions where people can do their best work and is the co-author of the USA Today bestseller Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World.

She has a penchant for medieval and Renaissance history, especially the Black Death (hello, perspective). Fortunately, she balances it with a steady diet of comedians, so her family still invites her to dinner.

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