“If only we could break through our communication barriers.”

How often have you heard this phrase expressed with longing, or anger, or discouragement, in the teams and companies you have worked for?

If you want to experience an unforgettable image of what breaking through barriers really looks like…and feels like, pay a visit to the Elwha River in Olympic National Park, near Port Angeles and about a 3-hour drive-and-ferry from Seattle.

In 2014, the removal of a hydroelectric dam that had bottled up the river for 84 years was completed. What now remains is the gap between the two pieces of the 108-foot-high dam, perched like ruined ramparts above the newly freed churning river below (see the pictures to the left, taken on a recent trip by my good friend Daoud Neil Miller). Looking out from one of the remaining piers, there’s a visceral sense of a vast and unfettered open space. The river now flows from the drained lakebed above the dam (now burgeoning with new life) down the twisting rocky canyon below and out to the Pacific Ocean via the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Standing there on my visit a few months ago , I felt in my body the uncanny sense of liberated, open space. No constrictions to the flow. No hindrances. And I couldn’t help but think of how often the projects I’ve been on–projects I’ve led–feel, well, pretty dammed up.

In keeping with Stephen Covey’s Five Habits principle of “Begin with the end in mind,” I’d like to hold a project kickoff meeting at the remains of the Elwha dam sometime. We’ll stand there together and take in all that open space with all our senses. We’ll consider what dams we might be tempted to build during the course of the project: dams of protection, safety, territoriality. And we’ll consider how we can move forward with our work with a commitment to flow, and open space instead.

Now that’s a team metaphor that just might work.