Twentieth Century Concert Dance History

Landslide Development

Order Description

Instructions
Analyze the case study. Answer the following questions as they apply to the case study. Use the case study attached- Landslide Development. Also incorporate and then integrate into your analysis three scholastic real estate related articles. This paper must be written in third person.
• What are the key leadership activities present in the case
• What hurdles were faced and how were they managed?
• How did it impact the culture? Followers and the organization?
• What structural changes were made, and what was the impact of those changes on the organization’s culture
• WHY the results occurred (from a leadership and change management perspective-not just what tasks where completed).

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LANDSLIDE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION:
A CASE STUDY
Kevin R. Howell, Appalachian State University
Scott Crockett, Keiger Printing Company
CASE DESCRIPTION
The primary subject matter of this case is a family owned media agency that has found
itself in a business relationship that has soured. Secondary issues include ethical dilemmas with
a family owned business. This case was designed for use in a Senior Level Leadership in
Technical Settings course. The case is also appropriate for use in a undergraduate business
ethics course or management course. The case is designed to be taught in one class hour and is
expected to require approximately 2 hours of outside preparation by students.
CASE SYNOPSIS
This case has a myriad of issues involved. It focuses on the management of a real estate
development company. The company is growing and is presented with an opportunity to move
their operation to the next level. A media company that understands utilizing a specific data
mining technique to provide can’t miss contact information to the development company to rent
out their properties. Marital infidelity causes one member of the development company to
sabotage the whole operation. The media company has invested heavily in the project. They
expect a large return on their investment and instead find themselves as an unwitting 3rd
member of relationship triangle.
INTRODUCTION
Jim Benson sat staring at his telephone. He couldn’t believe the call he had just received.
He had just celebrated his 50th birthday and no one had ever spoken to him that way. The call
was from Richard Williams. Williams and his wife Josephine ran Misty Glen Development.
MGD as it has become known is in Big Bear Lake, California. It is a beautiful setting in the
middle of the San Bernardino National Forest. The location seemed ideal, almost midway
between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Who would have known that it could have gone this
poorly?
Jim had plans on this being the big one for his company. He was the CEO of the
Champion Brothers Agency. The agency specialized in digital printing and web development
services. Specifically, they specialized in the analytics of sorting through databases to find just
the right people for a given activity. The technique was held in highest secrecy by the agency.
They had subscriptions to numerous mailing lists. All of the lists had specific information about
individuals. The analysts employed here, combed through multiple mailing lists to find the same
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people on multiple lists that had the correct interests. He had matched up numerous groups
before. The last successful match was for a golf resort that wanted to increase their occupancy
rates. Champion Brothers had promised the resort 30 guaranteed bookings per week. The resort
had decided that was all of the new business they could handle. The resort didn’t realize that
Champion Brothers could have given them 500 per week if they could handle the traffic.
MGD had needed only 15 leads per week. Jim had been working with Williams and his
wife Josephine for almost a year now. Even though the process of providing leads for cabins
would seem similar to that of the golf resort, it actually required very different information. As it
turned out, the “leads” that would almost always book rooms, were dominated by church and
family groups on outings. The church group data sets were something Champion Brothers had
never invested in. This would be a serious new cost for the agency. Benson looked at this
investment as the foundation of a new market that Champion Brothers would soon dominate.
There were markets across the country exactly the same as Big Bear. Soon Champion Brothers
would duplicate the campaign with similar locations in Branson, Jackson Hole, Hot Springs and
more places than he could count. This was the big one that he had been waiting for.
MISTY GLEN DEVELOPMENT
Misty Glen Development had two operations. Richard ran the construction group and
Josephine managed the rentals. Business had been good but not great. The cabins ranged from
800 square foot 2 bedroom cabins to 10,000 square foot 7 bedroom behemoths. The finishes
used in the different floor plans varied widely. This resulted in a huge range of prices for
ownership in the cabins. The bare bones model could be purchased for less than $300,000. The
most expensive model sold so far for just under 3 million. Richard knew that he needed to keep
building units to keep the revenue stream strong. The biggest selling point was that the units
would stay rented, thus providing the owners with a steady profit on their investment. Richard
and Josephine worked closely on finding new renters to keep occupancy rates up.
Out of the blue, some guy called Josephine and introduced himself as the CEO of some
agency that was making big promises about new clients. Richard was skeptical. Benson had
showed up with a very polished presentation about some golf resort that was doing gangbuster
business. The occupancy rates had gone from just under 50% to just over 90%. Williams was
doing the math in his head about the money to be made if all of the cabins he was building were
full all of the time.
Josephine wanted to know about the process and what her role would be in booking the
cabins. Richard had questions of his own. Jim flew to Big Bear to make a formal presentation to
all of the managers at Misty Glen. After everyone involved signed a non-disclosure agreement.
He described his goals for their campaign and all of the details of the process for gathering the
“hot leads” for the rental system. Normally, he would book the reservations in house at
Champion Brothers. Since that would basically eliminate Josephine’s role, Jim adjusted the
system to provide Josephine’s office with all of the contact information. The staff of the rental
group would make cold calls or answer incoming calls from direct mail solicitations and book
the rooms. Richard asked about the feasibility of generating actual customers. Jim pulled out a
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list that the staff had already generated and asked Richard to pick a name from the list. He
looked amused but selected one half-way down the list. Jim pulled out his phone and dialed the
number. A woman answered the phone. Jim worked through the prepared script like a pro.
Richard could tell the prospect was excited about the offer. She said that her Woman’s Club was
looking for a location for an upcoming retreat and Misty Glen sounded perfect. She asked for a
number to call him back after she talked to the officers of the club. Jim gave her the callback
number and directed her to the website for more specific information. After they hung up, he
looked at Richard and said there is your first client in our new program. Richard was still
skeptical. He said that it couldn’t be that easy. Jim explained that his system gathered
information from many sources and only selected people that really wanted to hear about the
offer. He explained that it was like reading peoples minds about their needs. Jim looked at
Josephine and said imagine you were out of bananas. You were getting your coat on to go to the
market and buy a fresh bunch. All of a sudden there is a knock on the door and there is a person
on your porch selling bananas. How great would that be? Every name I give you is looking to
rent a cabin in the vicinity of Big Bear California. All you need to do is get to them before your
competition does. Jim answered a series of other questions about technical things and
expectations.
Richard said that he and Josephine needed to think for a couple of days and then make a
decision.
THE WILLIAMS SITUATION
Josephine and Richard had been having some marital problems. She was loosing trust in
him. There were all kinds of signs that didn’t look good. He seemed to be coming home later
and later. There were all of these trips to trade shows and vendor meetings. She finally got up
the courage to confront him about it. He denied it and a huge argument ensued. After the name
calling subsided, they went to separate bedrooms and called it a night. Josephine decided that she
needed some proof before confronting him again.
Josephine called a few of her friends to go out and talk about her suspicions over drinks.
Her friends happily met her at the Brigantine, a local bar and grill. She told them the whole story.
They talked for several hours about her suspicions. They decided to have some of their other
friends to perform some detective work. Her friends were afraid of being spotted, so they talked
to a private investigator. For a couple of hundred dollars he would do a quick analysis of the
situation and if he thought something was actually going on, recommend the proper course of
action.
Wes Chamberlin had been in the private investigation business for 15 years. He had seen
a lot in his time, some very sneaky polished cheaters and some others that were oblivious to
anyone seeing their transgressions. Richard Williams fell into the latter category. In the first
hour, Wes observed Williams meeting a brunette at a local restaurant. He left the eatery and
went to an apartment complex and disappeared inside. An hour later he emerged and went back
to work. Three other days that week, Wes observed similar conduct. That was all he needed to
hand proof to Josephine of Richard’s affair.
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Josephine was stunned with the proof of her suspicions. Armed with a packet of
photographs, times and locations, she decided to confront Richard with the facts. The argument
was epic. Lots of loud voices, accusations, tears ensued, followed by admissions. Richard was
hesitant to admit his wrongdoing. Faced with the facts, he told the whole truth. He told Josephine
that he really didn’t want to be married to her anymore and she could leave with the clothes on
her back and nothing else. She protested and told him at he was in the wrong and she would get
everything. Richard explained that all of the business components were in his name. As were the
house, cars, beach house and motorcycles. He asked Josephine to think about the prenuptial
agreement she signed. He reminded her that if they were to divorce, they would leave with their
own individual assets. Since everything was in his name, there was nothing for her to take. As
for the affair, he was happy with the arrangement and it would continue. If she wanted to leave
then she should leave. If she wanted to stay that was fine too. He was very clear about his future
actions.
REVENGE
Josephine read and reread the contract. How could she have signed such a thing? How
could she have let Richard put everything in his name? She consulted a lawyer later in the day,
who gave her a glimmer of hope, but only a slight one. She could fight it out in court and maybe
win only to have him appeal the decision. He could win, which would lead to an appeal of her
own. No matter which route she took, any closure would be, at best, years away. It was then that
she decided what her plan would be. The great life with the big house and lots of money was
getting ready to go away. Her husband would continue on without her. She was going to
sabotage the business, hopefully to the point that it would go under and take Richard with it.
She immediately stopped renting cabins. She let the phones ring when she thought a
potential customer was on the line. Voicemails were routinely disregarded and deleted. The only
cabins that were rented were to walk up customers. Those customers got very low prices for their
rentals. Richard came by frequently and asked why the cabins were empty. Her standard answer
was always the same, “Jim hasn’t sent us any contacts”. As a few weeks passed, the cabins
started to sit vacant, potential buyers started asking Richard why the existing cabins were empty.
Sales ground to a halt almost immediately. Richard asked Josephine to call Benson about the
lack of contacts. Josephine said she would and continued on with her day. Later when Richard
checked in she told him that Jim was checking on it. The same discussion played out the same
way for 3 more days. Josephine never called Benson. The next day Richard was as the end of his
rope with Champion Brothers. He called Jim Benson himself to get to the bottom of things. He
started the call with an accusation that Champion Brothers had ruined his business. The banks
were threatening to foreclose on several of his properties, next week would be the last week they
could meet payroll and without workers, MGD was in serious trouble. Benson replied that
Champion Brothers had provided MGD with 150 contacts over the past 10 weeks, just as their
contract had specified. Williams called him a liar, said his lawyer would be in contact and
slammed down the phone.
Benson called his IT manager and asked about the contacts. Shelly, the IT Manager said
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everything was perfect on the data side of the house. The issue seems to be that no one at MGD
was retrieving the names. Jim couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They had trained Josephine
on the system and she was consistently logging in. Why was she not using the contacts? Benson
decided to go in person to MGD to get to the bottom of things.
SHOWDOWN AT MGD
When Benson arrived, the situation was nothing like he had seen earlier. The cabins were
empty. There were probably 4 cabins under construction with no activity around them. The place
was a ghost town. He started toward the rental office and stopped. Should he have brought some
security with him? He pressed on. Richard and Josephine were the only ones in the office. Both
had aged considerably since he had seen them last. Richard started toward Jim and asked why he
was there? Jim said that he wanted to know why MGD wasn’t using any of the contacts he had
provided to them. Richard screamed that there were not any contacts. He said that Josephine
hadn’t had a contact in more than 2 months. Jim said that wasn’t true and started walking toward
Josephine’s computer. Josephine didn’t want to get out of her seat. She said the system didn’t
work and there were no names. Jim asked to see her screen. Reluctantly, she did give up her seat.
Benson wiggled the mouse and the screen jumped to life. He clicked on the Champion Brothers
icon and in a few seconds there were screen after screen of contact information. Benson said that
his company has invested more than $200,000.00 in the system. It was his turn to be upset. What
is going on here? It looks like you want the place to go under. You have all these names that
want to come here and you never contact them? Do you want to go broke? It was at that moment,
it hit Williams what had happened. He looked at Josephine and said you did this on purpose! She
replied calmly but firmly, you were going to leave me with nothing. Now we are equal. She rose
and walked out the door without speaking.
Benson was beside himself. Williams stood with his mouth open not knowing what to
say. Benson walked out the door into the beautiful California Mountains to see Josephine’s car
disappearing in the distance. He got in his own car and drove in silence the 5 hours back to his
office. What was he going to do? MGD was done. His company was down 200K. He called a
meeting with his brother and the management at Champion Brothers. They had some serious
decisions to make. Should they fold up the operation with MGD? The cabins were still there.
Even though they were empty, they were in fact rentable. Champion Brothers knew the correct
formula to put people in the cabins. Is there any hope of reconciliation with MGD? Knowing
how much money was already invested, could they devise a plan to salvage the whole project?
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