The Stone Industry Education series – organized by Stone World and the Natural Stone Institute (NSI) – closed out its final stop for the year in Reno, NV, at Pacific Shore Stones, under the direction of General Manager Bryant Perez. Fabricators and other stone industry members gathered on Thursday, November 6th for the educational discussion led by NSI Executive Board Member Blake Christensen, a veteran fabricator based outside of Salt Lake City, UT, with multiple locations. Attendees not only came from Reno, but also the surrounding area, such as Sacramento, CA.

Christensen began his presentation with an analogy of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. “Dorothy’s whole objective was to get home,” he said. “What did it take for her to get home?” Someone from the audience said, “to believe.” “Dorothy had the knowledge the whole time to go home,” explained Christensen. “She gets to the Wizard, and what does the Wizard do? He says, ‘Tap your heels and say go home.’ And what happened? She went home.”

Christensen explained his point is that Dorothy had the knowledge the entire time she was on this journey, but it took someone else to give her a different perspective. “The Wizard gave her that insight to actually make the change and do it,” he said. “Dorothy did the work.

“I feel like that is what we often do with our businesses,” Christensen went on to say. “We know what we need to do to change and to achieve our objectives, but it takes that outside perspective.

Hopefully we can come up with today those little ‘nuggets’ that will help our businesses be successful.”

Mindset

The conversation then shifted to mindset. “Mindset is kind of a buzz word,” said Christensen. “What comes to mind? How we see things? The ‘why’ behind things?”

He then introduced several books that have been a beneficial read to him, including Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute. “That book for me was a life-changing book,” said Christensen. “We gave it to all of our employees. It’s easy to read.” He added that a lot of what would be talked about during the day came from that book. “It explains why mindset matters,” he said.

Christensen then brought up “current results.” “What do we do in our current organization if we want to change the results? We try to change behavior,” he said. “We try to force that change. But below that behavior is the employee’s mindset. How is he seeing what he is doing? If we want to change the results, we push the behavior. We forget there is a bungee cord connected from the mindset to the behavior, so if we don’t change the mindset, that behavior pulls right back. We need to get down to the root as to why we are asking our employees or organization to change.”

If an organization focuses on mindset, it is four times more likely to experience success than ones that don’t, Christensen told his audience. As an example, he asked how does a fabricator change from running a dry shop to a wet shop? He said they would need to understand silicosis is a real issue and it is affecting people’s lives. Their mindset would have to be changed to convince them that being a wet shop is a safer environment. “It will take a mindset shift to change that behavior,” he said. “Part of what NSI is doing is providing that information.”

Growth

It was brought up that mindset can also affect performance. “If the business doesn’t grow, the owner won’t grow, said one participant in the audience.

The conversation then transitioned to growth. Christensen asked the audience: “How do we know when to grow?” “What keeps us up at night?”

One audience member said that when he has 10 weeks of work, he can sleep at night. “I like how you measure success by weeks,” said Christensen.

Another participant explained that his business is currently at a crossroads. “I am at a wall right now where I see a lot of money and I don’t have a lot of money,” he said. “I don’t know how to either grow or size down enough to make it profitable.”

Christensen asked the group: “How do you know?” “I don’t think there is one single answer for this,” he said. “What are you comfortable with?”

Another participant explained that five years ago his business shifted their focus to “growing leaders.” “What I see is that most business owners take all the pressure themselves,” he said. “When you hire a leader or teach a leader to grow, then you have to hold them accountable to take over certain divisions/sector to continue to grow.”

“You are absolutely right,” said Christensen. “It is hard to find leaders and to train leaders. If they are hungry, we can train them on these skills. One of the keys is to have training.”

The engaging conversation continued throughout the all-day event. Additional topics included employee scorecards, techniques to incentivize employees and ways to measure success, among others.

Throughout the day, attendees also had the opportunity to speak with event sponsors who were on site, including Biesse, Big Dog Adhesives, CMS, Coverings, Donatoni, InnoChem and More Surfaces, as well as the Pacific Shore Stones team. Additional event sponsors included: Dry-Treat, GoClips, GranQuartz, Park Industries, The International Surfaces Event (tise) and Total Stone Solutions.

To view the lineup of the 2026 Stone Industry Education events, visit: www.stoneindustryeducation.com.