Red Solo Cup Challenge: What Happens when Organizations Scale Up

change, entrepreneurship, team

The Red Solo Cup Challenge is a kinesthic exercise offering a rich metaphor to discuss issues organizations may face when they grow, or scale their operations up. In the world of entrepreneurship, a critical question for investors is a start-up’s ability to be scalable, often a concept difficult for students to grasp. By using red solo cups to build towers with increasingly more complex requirements during two rounds of competition, students experience opportunities for planning, “talent to task”, process improvement, teamwork, and leadership. This exercise can be used in traditional undergraduate and adult entrepreneurship, organizational behavior, and leadership classroom settings.

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