September 30th: A Special Day for BMP
September 30th this year was a special day for us.
We organized an event, reserved for our team, to celebrate BMP’s long journey, thank our employees for their dedication, and present our Vision to all the staff.
Why Sport?
Right from the start, when thinking about a “main theme,” we considered a common parallel: sport.
The similarities and analogies between the world of sport and that of work are numerous and meaningful. So, we decided to follow this path to organize a day that, through the common thread of sport, could highlight the strengths of a solid, successful, and future-oriented company.
Meeting Maurizia Cacciatori
It wasn’t difficult to associate a face with this choice.
A few months ago, our Mauro Granaglia (CEO) and Giuseppe Maffè (Commercial Director) had the opportunity to meet one of the most incredible athletes in Italian sports: Maurizia Cacciatori.
Maurizia, born in Carrara and daughter of a footballer, became passionate about volleyball at a very young age.
She made her debut in Serie A1 at just 16, played over 200 times for the national team, and helped secure the first Olympic qualification for the Italian women’s volleyball team.
Today, Maurizia works as a motivational speaker. However, this label hardly captures her full contribution. She brings her experience as an athlete, woman, and mother into the corporate world.
As she says, “Today I am aware that the great legacy that volleyball left me was not the cups or medals won but the great sense of responsibility, courage, inclusion, and trust in one’s team.”
The Venue and the Start of the Event
Our day began with a walk through the beautiful Villa Visconti Borromeo Litta in Lainate. This historical gem has survived the centuries and, thanks to the care of its owners, retained much of its beauty and significance.
We started the event by briefly retracing BMP’s history, from 1992 to today.
With anecdotes from our longest-serving members and some old photos, narrated by Riccardo Marangoni (Co-Founder & Chairman), we took a leap back over 30 years. In just a few minutes, we appreciated how much has changed.
We virtually walked the old corridors, remembered our first factories, and saw the lathes and die-cutting machines from which it all began.
From Past to Present and Future
After this journey into the past, it was time to focus on the present and, more importantly, the future.
Guided by Mauro Granaglia (CEO) and later by Maurizia Cacciatori, we explored two crucial concepts for us: Mission and Vision.
The Mission defines our current identity: who we are, what we do daily, and how we do it. The Vision, on the other hand, defines our future.
Why is it important to have a Vision? As Mauro says, “Because if you don’t have a vision, you don’t know which direction to take. You really don’t know where to go.”
Our Vision: Foundation of Our Work
Our Vision reads “To be a leader in efficiency and well-being, united in offering the best adhesive solutions” and bases its cornerstones on 5 fundamental points:
Proactivity: curiosity, courage and determination to realize the most creative and effective ideas, to make everyone work better.
Collaboration: Actively involving colleagues in decisions and communicating relevant information is a shared responsibility that stimulates collective growth, success and improvement. No one works alone, we can all improve and grow.
Rules: collaborating by respecting the rules, even if they may sometimes seem superfluous, and resolving conflicts is essential for a harmonious work environment, where mutual impact and help in difficulties favor the success of the group.
Excellence: committing to continuous improvement and innovation is essential to pursue standards of excellence and best satisfy customers.
Reliability: being reliable, setting challenging goals and planning the future together, anticipating challenges and adapting to improve the work, promoting autonomy and mutual trust.
Parallels Between Work and Volleyball
As we said earlier, the comparisons between sport and work, especially volleyball, are natural and compelling.
Proactivity on the Court and at Work
Consider a volleyball player preparing to serve. She can’t simply throw the ball. She must observe the court, consider teammates and opponents, and serve in the best possible way.
Similarly, in a company, we must assess our work and ask if it helps our colleagues. It’s not just about doing your job well; it’s about making others’ work easier.
Collaboration
Collaboration goes hand-in-hand with proactivity. Just as no one plays alone on the court, no one works alone in a company.
As tasks evolve, individual efforts often become team efforts. A colleague’s idea might be better than ours. Teamwork accelerates progress and brings fresh perspectives.
Our payoff, “We work in team,” captures this spirit perfectly.
Rules: The Game Patterns
One of the more debated parts of the Vision is the importance of rules. At first glance, they may seem like constraints. But they’re not.
As a company grows, clear guidelines are necessary. As Mauro puts it, “…the rules are the game patterns, the correct movements to win the game.”
Excellence and Daily Effort
All the above supports our pursuit of excellence. In volleyball, it’s the spike that scores.
But excellence isn’t talent. Talent is innate. Excellence is trained, day by day.
At a high level, small improvements come from daily, consistent effort. Excellence means never settling and always believing things can improve. That’s true optimism.
Reliability and Trust
The final pillar of our Vision is reliability. This must exist both internally and externally.
You can’t win a match without trusting your teammates. Likewise, in the workplace, trust is essential for synergy and planning.
When we trust one another, we can set goals and work together to achieve them.
Lessons from Maurizia’s Career
Maurizia, in telling us about her transition to professionalism, confided in us that things weren’t easy for her straight away: “I was a spiker, I scored 30 points, so mine was done for me. When they called me, they told me, -but how did the match go?- Well… I scored 32 points, but we lost 3 to 0. But I scored 32 points, right?”
The turning point came when the coach chose to change her role to setter. Decision that Maurizia did not take well at all. The thing that disturbed her most was the idea of having to do all the work and then get one of her teammates to score points and, consequently, take all the credit: “I didn’t understand anything at all! [laughs]”
Maurizia was learning what we learn every day: to work in a team. To remember that every gesture you make is not an end in itself but serves to make the team win. In this sense the team does not become the entity that obscures the talent of the individual but, on the contrary, becomes an extension of the individual.
Because it doesn’t mean that where an individual doesn’t get there, the whole team can’t get there together.
Leadership and Final Thoughts
We also reflected on leadership:
“I’ve heard great speakers define leadership with formulas. But leadership comes from within. It’s about being a good example for those around us.”
Conflicts arise when different minds and experiences meet. But even when viewpoints differ, the goal is shared. The aim is common, and unity is key.
Reinvention: The True Sign of a Winner
Finally, Maurizia spoke to us about her last years of career: “Maurizia, you are 27 years old, I am aiming for other athletes and I want you with a different role… like a mother hen, a team coordinator“.
In this case, there were two choices: blind and sterile anger or reinvention.
Becoming aware of a wonderful period that was coming to an end in favor of something else. At that moment Maurizia understood what it meant to be a winner.
Being a winner isn’t about cups, championships, prizes, interviews, points, “The real winner is the one who finds the right balance between exhilarating victories and bitter defeats.”
We too, in our reality, have had to face bitter defeats, the 2008 crisis and the pandemic of the last two years are examples of this, but we have always focused on reactivity and future.
Even in the most difficult moments we always focused our attention on what we had created and not on what we had lost. And focusing on what you have is the first step towards rebirth, towards proactivity, collaboration, rules, excellence and reliability.
As Maurizia says: “Cups are won in training and you go to the race just to collect them.”
BMP Team