Sundar Pichai - an IIT-MIT Alumnus and Global Head Google Chrome gave a important lesson by his cockroach story. The cockroach theory for self development : At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady. She started screaming out of fear. With a panic stricken face and trembling voice,she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.
Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky. The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but ...it landed on another lady in the group. Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama. The waiter rushed forward to their rescue. In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.
The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behaviour of the cockroach on his shirt.When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behaviour?
If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed? He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos. It is not the cockroach, but the inability of the ladies to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach that disturbed the ladies.One must realise that, it is not the shouting of his father or his boss or his wife that disturbs him, but it's his inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs him.
It's not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs one, but it is ones inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs him. More than the problem, it's his reaction to the problem that creates chaos in his life.
Lessons learnt from the story:one must understand, one should not react in life. One should always respond. The women reacted, whereas the waiter responded Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well thought of. A beautiful way to understand, LIFE.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president of product.