You shouldn’t lose your team’s best work to distraction and burnout.
With Pause, you won’t.
From original research on leaders at 150 top companies from Amazon to Google to LinkedIn, you’ll learn how to triple your team’s focus, regardless of the chaos that surrounds them.
“Filled with useful tips and memorable case studies, this will bring relief to organizations feeling lost in a sea of diversions." — Publisher’s Weekly
Pause and the online quiz, “How Distracting Are You?,” are available August 4.
What Readers are Saying
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“Shawn Vanderhoven names 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 a clear guide for how to do it without losing momentum. Read it before your next meeting, and then cancel half the meetings on your calendar.”
Daniel H. Pink
#1 New York Times bestselling author of DRIVE, WHEN, and THE POWER OF REGRET
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“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: BE A KICK-ASS BOSS WITHOUT LOSING YOUR HUMANITY -
"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: SAY LESS, ASK MORE & CHANGE THE WAY YOU LEAD FOREVER -
“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: HOW THE BEST LEADERS MAKE EVERYONE SMARTER
What the Best Leaders Do Differently:
The 12 Pauses
Pauses are intentional investments that create impact.
Each Pause is a verb. Start by asking your team which Pause would make the biggest difference right now. Then use the book’s step-by-step tools to put it into practice and triple your team’s focus on priority work.
1. PICK THE PRIORITY TARGET - When your team isn’t clear on what matters most. Most leaders believe they’ve made the priorities clear. Their teams often tell a different story. Does your team have this clarity right now?
2. TURN OUT YOUR POCKETS- When the hidden workload is silently overwhelming your team
3. INVITE DISSENT - When difficult trade-offs need your team’s best thinking to leverage results
4. BE YOUR TEAM’S AGENT - When talented people are stuck doing work that doesn’t fit their strengths or advance their careers (or yours)
5. ESCAPE EMAIL HELL - When messages are constantly pulling your team away from their most important work
6. ESTABLISH HOUSE RULES - When your team needs shared norms to protect their best work
7. SPONSOR MONK MODE - When your team’s most important work requires uninterrupted time to think and the protection it deserves
8. TUNE IN BEFORE YOU JUMP IN - When people need partnership, not another task dropped on their plate
9. CLEAR YOUR DESK - When someone needs your full attention before they can make progress
10. COACH THROUGH FAILURE - When mistakes are undermining confidence and slowing progress
11. PUT GROWTH ON THE AGENDA - When people can’t see where today’s work is taking them
12. HOLD A CLEARING - When unresolved frustrations are stealing your team’s attention from doing their best work
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 isn’t individual. It’s social.
No personal productivity system can overcome a workplace designed to interrupt you. Pause is the way out. 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.
Pause was written for leaders who are done with busyness and ready to create the conditions for brilliant work. If you're a knowledge worker, middle manager, or senior executive ready to get extraordinary results, this is your book. And if you're leading Gen Zers, it's especially helpful: these practices build the kind of trust and clarity their generation needs to thrive.
The pressure to do more isn’t going away. But your team's best work doesn’t have to disappear into the noise. Pause gives you back what busyness stole. And then some.
Download a Free Chapter
About the Authors
Shawn Vanderhoven leads the executive development practice for senior leaders and rising talent at The Wiseman Group. He is a keynote speaker as well as collaborator on the New York Times bestseller Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (Second Edition).
As a Partner at The Wiseman Group, Shawn co-designs executive development strategies that help leaders and managers amplify their organization’s most valuable asset—its people. He has partnered with leading brands around the globe, including Amazon, Alphabet, Adobe, Capital One, Deloitte, McKinsey, and Salesforce.
He lives in Menlo Park, California, with his wife Anne, and researches how top leaders and teams sustain focus on what matters most—regardless of the circumstances.
Anne Vanderhoven is a researcher and writer. Endlessly curious about how the best leaders create conditions for brilliant work, she is a co-founder of the consulting firm UP.
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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