River rafting is a popular sport these days and I must admit that I too am quite addicted to this stress-buster. But, during my last trip, the thrill of navigating the white water interspersed with the calm of floating downstream paled against excitement and determination of an army team that passed us by – they were rafting upstream!

It is raining trouble outside…and at times like this, it is easy to forget about the rainbow that appears at the end of the rain. But difficult as it may be to think positive, that is just what we did at Unstructure, the unprecedented HCL Global meet, where 600 business leaders met in Florida, US, last month.

All around us, the rules of engagement are being rewritten. Perhaps the term ‘rules’ itself is inappropriate in this age where Wikipedia, Linux, Facebook, Napster and eBay are new flag bearers. These live laboratories of the human mind are governed not so much by rules as by the power of collaborative thinking.

I was listening the other day to Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management discuss leadership lessons from the financial meltdown with Wall Street Journal. Jeff likened the finger-pointing towards systemic failure to a man tripping while walking down the street and blaming the city for not paving the path properly.

We can all see dark clouds gathering ahead. The western world is in the throes of a recession, there’s a financial crisis that has got its foot stuck in the door, regulators are battling solutions behind not-so-closed doors. Meanwhile people are losing jobs, capital is drying up, and just about everything has hit the fan.