Fortune | FORTUNE 07月19日 18:09
Extreme team building: Here’s why this law firm sends hundreds of lawyers on some of the most intense hikes in the world every year
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Quinn Emanuel律师事务所每年都会组织一场高强度的徒步活动,作为一种独特的团队建设方式。该活动旨在模拟法律团队在审判过程中所经历的压力,并培养员工在困难时期相互依靠的精神。通过将来自不同地区的数百名员工带到充满挑战的户外环境中,该活动促进了深厚的同事情谊和个人成长。尽管活动充满艰辛,包括高海拔徒步和不可预测的天气,但参与者普遍认为这是一次宝贵的经历,能够将团队凝聚在一起,并在逆境中学习。

🥾 Quinn Emanuel律师事务所每年都会组织一场高强度的徒步活动,这已成为公司文化的一部分。该活动旨在通过共同面对挑战来增强员工之间的凝聚力,并模拟法律工作中的压力与合作。

⛰️ 活动的地点和难度每年都会变化,通常涉及高海拔地区和长距离徒步,例如今年在秘鲁安第斯山脉的18英里过夜徒步,这对参与者的体力和耐力提出了极高的要求。参与者需要自备装备,并对自己的安全负责。

🤝 此次徒步活动不仅是对体能的考验,更是对团队协作和心理韧性的锻炼。活动旨在让员工在极端环境下学会相互支持,克服困难,从而加深同事间的理解和信任,这种经历被认为对日常工作中的团队合作大有裨益。

💡 尽管徒步活动充满挑战,甚至可能遇到熊、恶劣天气等突发状况,但公司会提供详细的装备建议和安全指导。活动的初衷是让员工在克服困难的过程中学习,并将这些经验应用于未来的法律实践中。

💰 参与活动并非强制,但每年约有四分之一的员工会参加。虽然部分费用(如装备、额外住宿)需要员工自理,但公司承担了大部分成本。对于夏季实习生,参与活动是免费的。

The annual hike at law firm Quinn Emanuel is part rite-of-passage, part stress test, and not for the faint of heart. Every year, the company flies hundreds of employees to a different location so they can take part in a rather extreme hiking ritual, a kind of company retreat to gather people from far-flung office buildings and build camaraderie. 

Last month, more than 250 employees flew to Cusco, Peru, to hike part of the Andes mountain range. The lawyers had two options: a grueling 18-mile overnight hike through the Salcantay Pass in the Andes, which reaches an altitude of more than 15,000 feet, or a slightly less intense 8.5-mile trek to 14,000 feet. 

“It’s intense,” says Tigran Guledjian, partner at Quinn Emanuel and co-chair of the firm’s national intellectual property litigation practice, who helps run the hikes and has been attending them for more than 20 years. “You carry your own backpack with your own tent, and your own sleeping bag, and your own food, and you are responsible for yourself. There’s nobody out there who is going to do anything for you, other than your colleagues.” 

Quinn Emanuel

The tradition started in 1993, when founder and current chairman John B. Quinn, a devoted triathlete, took 15 legal analysts on a backpacking trip through Utah’s Coyote Gulch. Aside from a few years off during the COVID pandemic, the firm has hosted the event every year since then. The trip has gotten bigger over the years, and the team started travelling internationally in 2008 to some of the most recognizable and renowned hiking locations including the Faulhornweg Trail in Interlaken, Switzerland, Fuji-san in Tokyo, Japan, and Mt. Olympus, in Thessaloniki, Greece. 

“These are not easy hikes,” says Stephen Wood, managing partner of the firm’s Salt Lake City Office, who also helps execute the event. “They challenge everyone and we have a broad spectrum of people who are there, from collegiate athletes and those who do Iron Mans for fun, to those who have never camped out in their lives.”

Partners say the point of the hike is to simulate some of the stress that legal teams go through during trial and teaches employees to lean on each other when things get tough. It also serves as a way to get people from various offices across the country in one place to do something genuinely challenging together. “There are all sorts of parallels between putting yourself in a difficult situation and overcoming it, and what happens during litigation,” notes Guledjian. 

“There’s always something you can’t control out in nature and there are lessons to be learned from that which do end up being helpful in the courtroom later on.”

Quinn Emanuel sends its workers on an extreme off site every year, and says it helps workers build invaluable friendships.

Quinn Emanuel

Going on the hike is not mandatory, but anyone who works at the firm is welcome to attend. Roughly a quarter of the company’s workforce, or 250 people, go every year. While many workers pay around $1,000 to help cover trip bills like hiking equipment or staying an extra day beyond the hike, the rest of the trip is covered by the firm. Analysts who are only there for the summer are invited to go for free. 

Unexpected things have certainly happened: bear encounters, park ranger citations, scorching temperatures, torrential downpours and more. During a trip to Armenia last year, an intense thunderstorm broke out while the team was hiking above the tree line and leaders had to find a way to get hundreds of people off the mountain as fast as possible. The team called for help and had to be rescued by locals. 

The company does its best to prepare workers for the dangers of each hike. After years of people bringing extra items they don’t need, like jars of marinara sauce and boxes of plastic cutlery, the company sends out a “meticulously curated” list that seasoned employees put together based on decades of doing these excursions. One of the longest hikes the team completed was 50 miles in three days in Iceland, which included 25 miles of terrain in one day, says Guledjian. 

“There’s always this caboose of 10 people who are a little bit in over their head and even though they’re the ones that are having the toughest time, they have the most rewarding experience because they don’t get left behind, they’re not out there on the trail by themselves, they’re with other people who are struggling, sealed together in a crucible. And those friendships linger.”

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Quinn Emanuel 团队建设 徒步活动 企业文化 高强度挑战
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