Reaction vs. Response, Winner is Response!

(Big time)
This is a lengthy blog but worth reading it!
We all know about the cockroach theory; in short this shows the behavior pattern of individuals
when accidentally a cockroach sits on them.
A small Story:
At a hotel, 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 behavior of the cockroach on his shirt. When he was
confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.
Learning:
A lot!
It was not the cockroach that does histrionic behavior but we individuals react to situations
differently which counts who we are. The waiter was calm and handled the situation to
perfection and this is response vs. reaction that was shown by the group of women.
Reacting is being defensive with our emotions taking a central role without reason driving us
forward. Eventually, we lose control of the situation.
Instead, we should always respond. This is being more thoughtful and most importantly contains
reasoning. This is less of emotions and more of Logic! The greatest benefit of responding is that
it can change the direction of an interaction to what it right!
Real life Situation:
I had a sub-ordinate who always used to think* that he was right and knew everything. We had
many situations where the application users send in for issues and he always argued (reacted
without even checking once) that the configuration/set-up was fine. This led to many escalations
which was investigated and later corrected. After the advice and lot of explanation, the subordinate started investing more time and responding rather than reacting which solved a lot of
issues