Aim Clear Blog has a post on writing outside of the first person and externalizing credit while internalizing fault as a means of being highly successful.

Truly great leaders (level 5) share a number of mostly-common traits. One of them is crediting others (looking out the window) for success and taking responsibility (looking in the mirror) for failures. External factors contributing to success could include luck, excellent team members, & market trends.

Failure often stems from lack of a coherent game plan, inviting the wrong team members onto the bus, & not facing brutal truths. Tactic or trap, writing from the self-center person can be an intentional grammatical style book decision.

The entry goes on to detail when you should and should not speak in the first person, with an aim of eliminating all self-references. While this is a good idea in theory, there are two small problems with that, as I noted in my comment.

The only downside to this technique is the propensity to write in a passive voice and come off as factual where the information is actually pure opinion. Your average reader would not be able to pick up on the fact what you have written (in this post most especially) is not to be taken as gospel, because you have successfully sold opinion as fact - to the average reader.

The critical thinker however, will notice that you have only referenced one other person, but not as a resource. You are not quoting studies or linking to references - which points to the idea you have not come to these conclusions via externalized research.

This technique, in essence, is a different form of propaganda, stemming from the magic words of marketing.

Whether you consider this to be a bad or good thing all depends on what you wish to do with this blog. Far be it for me to say the way you write is wrong - perhaps a bit deceptive, but given your demographic I’m sure they can understand your intentions and come to the same conclusions I did. =)

Notes: I originally referenced the 13 magic words of marketing in a People Watching blog post (send a request to mayobrains at gmail dot com if you do not have access and I'll consider emailing the text to you), and of course propaganda has been on my mind thanks to Maki at DoshDosh.

However, that is not my only concern with the concepts presented in the Aim Clear post. Honestly, the idea of externalizing credit while internalizing fault sounds like so much communism to me - great in theory, but not very effective in practice for a long period of time.

While it's great for improving your image with others temporarily, eventually this will shatter your internal image... and when the inside has grown dull, the outside can no longer shine genuinely. This concept is presented in my Uniform Social Standards theory.

So what is the best solution? Honesty. True, open, honesty. If you think something to be so, then say you think it. If you think you know something to be so, then reference your sources. And when it comes down to who gets the credit - dig down to the root, and find the most true reason for success and failure.

 

Some time ago, I had a poetic mentor. He was helping me to "originalize" my work, and kick it up a notch like William Carlos Williams. That last entry, Through Mine Eyes, I was running by him, and here's what he came up with, kind of a re-mix:


( Through Mine Eyes re-wording )


I've been struggling to get there, to get to that point again. It's pretty hard to write concisely and yet with such anti-gravity that on the most superficial level the point is completely missed. In a nutshell, here's my "mission" essentially:


( Poetic Mission )


To this day, I still look upon his, these, words of advice, and continuously work to mold myself into something greater...


( Words of Advice )


I'll make it back there someday...