The Gratitude Product Teams Rarely Receive
Recognizing the unseen work, hard decisions, and conditions that make meaningful product work possible
On Thanksgiving day, we went around the table as a family and talked about what we were thankful for. Most of the appreciation was around family, friends, togetherness and yummy food all the moms had cooked. This got me thinking about appreciation for our teams, as I wrote my own email to the team this week.
When we write generic appreciation notes, some times we say very little. We thank people for “hard work,” “collaboration,” and “partnership,” but skip the part that actually matters: the invisible labor that holds product teams together.
Product work isn’t just powered by dashboards or roadmaps. It’s also powered by people doing the quiet, unglamorous, emotionally heavy work that makes meaningful progress possible. This is the invisible labor. If we’re going to talk about gratitude, it should recognize the work that rarely gets acknowledged but fundamentally shapes how teams show up.
Gratitude for Leaders Who Create Conditions, Not Just Direction
Product leadership isn’t just about directing activity. It’s about creating the psychological, political, and strategic conditions that allow real product thinking to survive.
The kind of product leaders who:
Protect teams from noise just long enough so strategy can take shape.
Hold the line when the organization drifts back into output-first thinking.
Anchor conversations in customer problems rather than pet projects.
Absorb organizational friction so teams can focus on the work.
This form of stewardship rarely gets celebrated, yet it enables everything else.
Gratitude for Teams Doing the Invisible Work
Product teams carry more emotional and cognitive weight than most people realize. The real “hard work” isn’t always what shows up in release notes.
The teams who:
Reframe vague business requests into clear problem statements.
Build alignment across stakeholders with competing incentives.
Ask the inconvenient questions that prevent bigger issues later.
Hold ambiguity while still pushing momentum forward.
Challenge assumptions without escalating conflict.
Navigate shifting priorities without losing the customer.
This work is often thankless, but it is essential.
Gratitude for Cross-Functional Partners Who Make the Work Better
Great product work is never the result of a single team. It’s a collective effort.
The cross-functional teams with:
Designers who advocate for user truth even when timelines push back.
Engineers who strengthen the product’s future, not just its present.
Analytics partners who bring clarity instead of noise.
Ops and frontline teams who surface reality, not filtered data.
Business partners who choose clarity over urgency.
These contributions elevate the work in ways most people never see.
Gratitude for Healthy Tension
Healthy friction is often misunderstood as conflict. When handled well, it’s a source of strength.
The teams willing to debate tradeoffs honestly, challenge misaligned goals, push for better metrics, build time for discovery, and hold one another accountable for outcomes.
This tension improves products far more than any process or ritual.
Gratitude as a Cultural Signal
Appreciation isn’t a nicety. It’s a force that compounds. When people feel seen, they show up differently. Recognizing invisible labor strengthens trust, accelerates decisions, and reduces the pull toward feature-factory habits.
Gratitude reinforces the behaviors that produce real outcomes - honest, curiosity, courage, alignment, and focus.
Culture shifts through how people treat each other, not through frameworks.
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The coming year will demand more: more clarity, more prioritization, more strategic discipline, and more courage in uncertainty. The foundation for that work is built by people who carry the invisible load: people who choose care over speed, truth over convenience, and users over noise.
Thanksgiving is a moment for gratitude, not as performance, but as recognition for the collective effort that makes meaningful product work possible.
Here’s to the people doing the unseen work that shapes everything ahead.