A corporation that runs and manages many unrelated businesses to reduce risk in any specific industry is called a conglomerate. You know them as the likes of Tyco, Loews and American Standard. With all due affection, we know them as cockroaches. And there’s much to learn from our six-legged, turn-on-the-kitchen-lights-and-scream ancestors.

Universally despised for their creepy looks, cockroaches carry diseases like salmonella, dysentery, gastroenteritis, typhoid, and leprosy. They’re easy to hate. But you could also argue that they are one of the most successful creatures on earth. They’ve been scurrying around for 295 to 354 million years, which makes the world’s oldest profession look like a garage startup. How do they do it?

The cockroach business model is like a highly stable conglomerate composed of largely decentralized and varied businesses. The diversity of holding insures survival through any cyclical market fluctuations, or natural catastrophes. Maybe you’ve survived a crashing stock market. Cockroaches have endured high-impact meteors.

Although cockroaches don’t own subsidiaries, the world is their oyster in a way that a CEO can only dream about. Cockroaches skedaddle in 4,000 different species and feast on anything from leather, beer, glue, dried skin and gum to just about any plant, vegetable, fruit or meat. Their version of food is like our money, and they can eat anything.

Like great conglomerates roaches persist with a vengeance. They can live a week without their heads (management beware); a month without food; 40 minutes underwater; and absorb up to 15-times the radiation of humans without dying. And, as you may have discovered late at night, their exoskeleton makes them tough to crush.

Sure, roaches benefit from being omnivorous, and having a tough shell. But they also exhibit group-based decision-making, a sophisticated behavior that accounts for complex actions such as resource allocation and competition. Are your staff meetings this productive?

As a brand, the mighty cockroach is golden. Its DNA, profligate eating habits and interpersonal skills remain unchanged over the millennia.

What we learn from roaches is extreme flexibility in food (money) sources, cooperation and resilience. So what’s your plan?

It couldn’t hurt to add a little roach to your portfolio.

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