ABSTRACT
Reggie Jackson steps in at the plate, our attention riveted on him, and drives the ball so high eind so far that even he stands in awe of the blast...watching the ball, which a few moments earlier raced toward him at over ninety miles an hour, now bounce off the roof of Tiger Stadium, hundreds of feet away. The home run, the Nobel Prize, the Academy Award, the Woman of the Year Award, the promotion to CEO, they focus our minds on the individual and on the achievement. Individuals and achievements, the two run together for us to become individual achievement We need our heroes and heroines. They inspire us. They give us idealized models to which to aspire. But with this idealization-this making super human-we can lose sight of the actual process of achievement. No matter how extraordinary the person-and many of our heroes and heroines are indeed extraordinary-the accomplishment is rarely, if ever, an individual achievement. The magnificent deeds arise from a long history of relationships. The same is true with our growth: we get by with a little help from our friends.
