Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World

A counterintuitive approach to productivity and unlocking your team’s highest potential through slowing down.

In our hyper-paced world, today’s teams face relentless demands, endless distractions, and intense pressure to deliver more with fewer resources and in less time. Overwhelmed with an endless stream of tasks and the constant ping of emails, our workplaces leave our teams buried in chaos, while we as managers unintentionally scatter our employees’ efforts with unclear priorities and the pressure to overcommit. Now, in Pause, speaker and consultant Shawn Vanderhoven turns conventional thinking about productivity and leadership on its head. Drawing from the latest research and real-world insights from top-performing teams at industry giants like Amazon, Google, and LinkedIn, Vanderhoven reveals that the most effective leaders don’t chase action for action’s sake. Instead, they pause. Pause is the deliberate act of slowing down to understand what your people truly need to do their best work, and it’s the secret to empowering your employees to regain control of their time and energy, regardless of the circumstances. In Pause, Vanderhoven explores how to effectively filter out all the noise—from magnifying what matters most by identifying truly urgent tasks to buffering out busy through reducing common distractions like excessive emails—so your team can finally focus on the right priorities at the right time. Through actionable strategies and captivating case studies, Pause helps anyone foster environments where impactful work thrives, showing that sometimes the fastest way forward starts with a pause.

© 2026 Simon & Schuster Audio (Audiobook): 9781797192222

Release date

Audiobook: 4 August 2026