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In a past consulting project, I encountered a feisty but creative branch manager whose firm had just been taken over by a large corporation. The only adornment in his Spartan office was a large, framed caricature of a cow on the wall behind his desk. What made the drawing even more unusual was the label. In large block letters directly under the cow was the word "HORSE" followed by the new corporate logo. His explanation: "I use it to remind myself and my employees that no matter what kind of a spin those ... (I won't quote his string of picturesque adjectives) people at headquarters put on things, we need to trust our own judgment, believe what we see, and make up our own minds."

After watching the Olympics, the conventions, attack ads and occasional -- mostly inadvertent -- encounters with so-called "reality" TV and mindless, laugh-track-queued "sit-coms" filled with sophomoric sexual innuendos and bathroom humor, I've come to the conclusion that we all could use some horse-labeled cows on our walls.

One definition of psychosis is the inability to distinguish reality from fantasy and, to the extent the spin masters are successful in seducing us to board a train headed for fantasy­land, our collective mental health is in peril. As parents and responsible citizens we need to get off the illusionary express, and we can do that right here in the Triad.

Here are some "spins" and what we can do about them.

The political conventions

Both were calculated, rehearsed, very expensive, made-for-TV pep rallies. The candidates were already picked. The pillars behind Barack Obama in Denver were fake; the domestic scene of Cindy McCain holding a baby was scripted. The speeches were written by professionals; the candidates, just as is done by actors, simply delivered their lines.

The way to get off the fantasy­land express is to resist the seduction of form over substance. We need to make up our own minds based on the issues and our assessments of candidates' judgment and leadership abilities. As parents we need to talk to our children, young adults and first-time voters to help them differentiate between political show business and reality.

One advantage -- albeit a strange one -- that we have in Greensboro and Guilford County is that we have a rich history of witnessing a gritty, non-sanitized, political process. This can act as a reality check to the artificial, carefully scripted, political shows that are erroneously labeled "conventions."

Attack advertisements

At the state and national levels, we are subjected to out-of-context, shallow political advertisements that are delivered in accusatory, whining tones. Although many of us find them offensive and demeaning, the spin masters on both sides keep running them because they apparently work. We need to step back and see them for what they are: attempts at superficial, emotional manipulation.

We live in a media-rich environment and there are multiple ways to arrive at balanced, thoughtful evaluations of candidates. Falling for the soap-opera sham of attack ads is not only a lazy and irresponsible way to make important selection decisions, it is an open invitation to accept a free ticket to fantasyland.

The Olympics

At one level, the Olympics this past summer reflected the poetry of pure sport and a spectacular media show celebrating a coming-out party for China. At another -- one suppressed by network TV -- it was a masterpiece of manipulation, smoke and mirrors and spin. Greensboro's own Joey Cheek was denied a visa because he dared advocate help for those starving in Darfur. A talented young vocalist was denied the spotlight because she was not "pretty" enough. Young girls -- who knows how young they really were -- were separated from their families and "trained" to produce medals. Everywhere you looked, smiling, scripted, Stepford-like, robotic Chinese girls were hosting events and leading athletes around.

We can look back at the Olympics and relish the memory of superb athletes engaged in healthy competition. However, we need to resist the manipulative attempts to make us believe that the "Disney World" depicted on TV has any resemblance to reality.

Sitcoms and reality TV

If, as parents, we don't intervene regularly and consistently, our children will begin to believe that people really converse in the shallow, put-down, innuendo-laden sound bites they find in sitcoms. Worse, having been conditioned by ritualistic laugh tracks employed to pass off this boorish behavior as humor, they will try to emulate it in real life. The "reality" depicted in popular reality TV is one of artificiality, deceit and self-absorption. In the "real" reality, decent, productive, healthy people do not behave this way.

We can combat the spin masters by acting as responsible parents, understanding our own vulnerabilities and accessing others. As parents we can talk to our children. We can help them understand the distortions and the marketing orientation of made-for-TV events. We can help them discover alternative sources of information, such as newspapers, forums and blogs. Most of all, we can monitor their TV time.

We need to take our responsibilities as role models seriously and walk our talk. We need to examine our behavior and come to grips with our own biases and vulnerabilities. This critical self-understanding, difficult though it may be, is central to independence and immunity from manipulation.

Accessing others, can, through feedback, facilitate self-understanding. By interacting with others and seeking alternative perspectives, we can develop the capacity for reflection and a healthy skepticism. We may not need a drawing on the wall to remind us that, regardless of the label, a cow is still a cow. But as responsible citizens, we do need constant vigilance to resist the seductive manipulation of the spin masters.

David Noer (dnoer@elon.edu) is the Frank S. Holt Jr. Professor of Business Leadership at Elon University and an honorary senior fellow at Greensboro's Center for Creative Leadership. He writes a monthly column for the News & Record on leadership, organizational behavior and community issues.