Ana Trantea, Senior People Strategist
In a world obsessed with speed, AI, and performance, one simple box reminded a tech team what truly builds great products: people.
In software consulting, days rarely wait. Teams ship, iterate, and optimize. Conversations revolve around AI, performance, and efficiency. Speed becomes the rhythm everyone learns to breathe in. Yet beyond systems and tools, another system runs just as powerfully, and it is far more delicate, far more difficult to calibrate: the human one.
This year, as the conversation around People & Products becomes more intentional, a simple question began to surface: if we treat our products with such attention to detail, why wouldn’t we do the same for the way work feels, every day?
The answer arrived on an ordinary morning when the office looked slightly different. Among the familiar hoodies, there were touches of pink and red. In the air floated a mix of curiosity and shy smiles, the kind that appear when routine softens and nobody quite knows what will happen next.
At the reception desk, almost modestly, there was a box. The Gratitude Box.
The idea was simple. If you have something kind to say to a colleague, write it down. No pressure. No mandatory signature. No speeches. Just a thought. On the surface, it could have passed as a sweet Valentine’s gesture. But it quickly became something else: a moment to make time to truly see the people around us.
Throughout the day, small scenes unfolded. Some walked past the box twice before stopping. Some whispered, “Did you write one?”. Others spent long minutes searching for words that would feel big enough for what they carried inside.
By evening, the box was full. If anyone expected general, polite, standard messages, they were mistaken. The notes were specific. Honest. Human.
“Thank you for helping me when I was stuck.”
“I appreciate your patience with me.”
“I’m really glad we work together.”
In that moment, something became very clear. In an industry where the brain is constantly trained, the heart often remains in silent mode. Not because people don’t care, but because the pace rarely leaves space.
For Ana Trantea, Senior People Strategist at Tremend – Publicis Sapient, the realization was profound: “I’m not organizing events”, she says. “I’m designing contexts. I’m building experiences that, taken together, tell the story of what it truly feels like to work here.”
Just as a product manager thinks about every user interaction, People Strategy lives in the interactions between humans. This is where trust appears. Where belonging grows. Where collaboration becomes natural.
The Gratitude Box didn’t change strategies or roadmaps. But it did something no platform, no automation, no AI can fully replicate: it created real moments of recognition. And from those moments come the things every organization hopes for: the courage to ask questions, the generosity to help, the motivation to stay, the energy to build better products.
Technology makes us faster. Care for one another makes us better.
By nightfall, everything returned to normal. Yet in a stack of folded papers remained proof that people sometimes need nothing more than a simple frame to say what truly matters.
Perhaps that is People & Products in its most honest form.
