“Scientists have taken another step toward understanding what makes the human brain unique,” writes Jon Hamilton in their recent NPR article entitled “What Makes A Human Brain Unique? A Newly Discovered Neuron May Be A Clue.”
According to the article. “An international team has identified a kind of brain cell that exists in people but not mice, the team reported Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.”
"This particular type of cell had properties that had never actually been described in another species," says Ed Lein, one of the study's authors and an investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, in Hamilton’s article.
“The finding could help explain why many experimental treatments for brain disorders have worked in mice, but failed in people. It could also provide new clues to scientists who study human brain disorders ranging from autism to Alzheimer's disease to schizophrenia,” explains Hamilton.
"It may be that in order to fully understand psychiatric disorders, we need to get access to these special types of neurons that exist only in humans," says Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which helped fund the research, in the NPR piece.
The article continues, “Researchers have suggested several other brain cells that might be unique to humans. But these cells have either been found in other species, or the evidence for them has been less convincing.”
“It is still possible that these newly identified neurons will also be found the brains of primates like monkeys or chimps, Lein says.” Hamilton continues in the article.
Hamilton further shares, “The brain cells have been named ‘rose hip neurons’ by a team at the University of Szeged in Hungary, which played a key role in the discovery.”
The discovery of rose hip neurons quickly provoked our thinking on the uniqueness of your property.
What makes your property different from, let’s say, a similar operation in the next city?
Yes, you run an operation like others.
Many of the same characteristics and practices exist.
But, there are ones that can be remarkably different.
That’s what we want to find out.
What are those?
Do we disregard them as being unique for your property and should you be paying closer attention to them?
Many best practices, policies, and theories for execution could work across the board.
But, it’s the “rose hip neurons” of your property that could be affecting your performance and adequate understanding of what you need to approach differently than another operation would.
This exercise requires you getting up close and personal with your operation.
Keep reading; we’re going to share the principle you can use to understand your property – and what makes it unique.
Use the ACDA Principle™ to Uncover Your Property’s Uniqueness
We’d typically tell you to use the ACDA Principle™ to understand, apply, and continuously improve your Awareness, Communication, Documentation, and Analysis.
But for the sake of this article, and identifying your property’s uniqueness, we’ll still use the Principle – but from a different approach.
Begin looking at your operation from many angles.
- Awareness
- Communication
- Documentation
- Analysis
Ask questions for each that help you discover your “rose hip neurons.”
What Makes Your Awareness Unique?
Awareness affords your operation the ability to anticipate and even prevent threats from impacting your organization.
When stuff does happen, you want to be able to mitigate it.
- “Do we need a way to manage incidents in issues efficiently?”
- “Does our operations center need a way to color code information being managed on our property?”
- “Are there specific areas of our property we know as being hotspots?”
- “What’s our resource allocation like?”
What Makes Your Communication Unique?
Communication leads to data.
This data gives you a way to communicate critical information.
- “Do things slip through the cracks because no one hears about an issue or incident until minutes, hours or days later?”
- “Would real-time communications via mobile applications help our property?”
- “Can we communicate high priority incidents in enough time to save lives?”
- “Are all personnel on the same page?”
What Makes Your Documentation Unique?
Documentation is the ultimate factor in providing your operation with clear-cut risk reduction.
You need to capture complete and accurate digital documentation for review and future analysis.
Agree?
- “How many subpoenas have we received this year?”
- “Is our documentation secure from anyone making changes that could hurt us in a legal suit?”
- “Can we read our records?”
What Makes Your Analysis Unique?
You can’t analyze what you don’t know.
Having and using the reporting for analysis is crucial for long-term performance.
Every property operation needs the ability to analyze their data.
It’s how you find your property’s ‘uniqueness’ while improving and optimizing everything you already know about too.
Over to You
The discovery of rose hip neurons offers two lessons relating to the perspective of what you think you know about your property. First lesson: you don’t know what you don’t know.
Second lesson: through research, failing, and further trial & error, you can eventually discover what you didn’t know. New aspects of your operation and how to process everything you were never previously aware of before surface.
Using the ACDA Principle™ to help you discover that one (or many) specific characteristics that make your property the way it is – how you operate, communicate, keep people safe, protect your bottom line, and deliver service to customers – is a proactive approach to understanding your uniqueness today and thereafter.
