There can be very few things more important in an organisation than the holding of regular sessions of evaluative exercises.

On Wednesday February 28th, the Daily Observer newspaper held such an evaluative session with a management consultant, Mr David Charlton, of Management Development Services, at the newspaper’s office, on Sait Matty Road.

The 67-year-old English man is a vastly experienced consultant with many talents, whose relationship with Africa began as far back as 1959, when he became a founder volunteer of VSO. So both the management and staff of the Daily Observer were delighted to have the services of such a man of distinction. And for free, too.

The privilege of a free consultation was on the strength of Mr Charlton’s affable relationship with the Managing Director of the organisation, Dr A.B.S. Taal. When Mr Charlton came to The Gambia, Dr Taal’s hostly gestures of guidance helped ease his stay in the country. So, to return the gesture, Mr Charlton offered the Daily Observer a free consultation.

The session was attended by all members of staff, including Dr Taal himself, the Managing Director, and Mr Andrew Dacosta, the Deputy Managing Director.

Dr Taal made the opening remarks, introducing Mr Charlton and also thanking him for his time. Mr Charlton, in turn, began his speech by reminding the participants of the value of holding periodic assessments of goals and targets.

The evaluation was an opportunity for the newspaper to get an accurate “weather report”, if you like, of how well resources and relationships were being managed.

In a competitive economy, organisations are compelled to innovate, in order to steal a march on their competitors. But the workability of innovations are largely determined by an organisation’s sober and realistic appraisal of its strategic direction and operational methods.

And the twin advantages of the session with Mr Charlton were that the management will have an accurate measure of the state of the company, and staff will most likely begin to think about their work in a more structured way, if they were not doing so already.

The session lasted for just about an hour; a rather slender time, but by no means slight in content, and the whole Observer Newspaper Company thanked him heartily for his ex gratis sharing of his expertise.