Windows of opportunity; blinks of time

Oriel Window at Lacock Abbey, taken by William Talbot — one of the earliest known photographs

For my part I would testify to what seems now a distant, almost ancient, surely a lost, moment. For what I now know was no more than a blink of time — if even that — I could believe that all things were possible, great deeds could be done, life could be transformed by someone who knew how to put the parts together and make the big machine run.

My life would be much the poorer had I not experienced that moment, rare and fleeting as it was.

— Tom Wicker of the New York Times, reflecting on the 25th anniversary of Lyndon B. Johnson’s inauguration.

This quote is from the final episode of the podcast series “LBJ and the Great Society”, hosted by Melody Barnes. I highly commend the podcast to anyone interested in politics and public policy. Through seven episodes it covers different aspects of the LBJ presidency — domestic (the creation of medicare and medicaid, the war on poverty, civil rights) and international (Vietnam) — and describes in some detail the grubby business of politics, the messy exercise of power, and the compromises of navigating vested interests.

This quote particularly stood out because it articulated what I have often thought about windows of opportunity — or blinks of time — in public service reform and public policy.

In short: Always be ready. Timing matters.

You never know when a window for radical and/or effective reform (“great deeds”) might open. It doesn’t just happen at the usual points of an electoral cycle or an organisation’s natural planning cycles: circumstances always conspire to create windows of opportunity.

Equally, you may already be primed and pushing for change and sometimes your timing just isn’t quite right. The window is closed. The actors who can effect your change might not have the capital they need — political, bandwidth, money, staff, time: any of the parts that make the big machine run — to effectively do anything with what you are proposing.

I had a particularly memorable experience of this. I was in a one-to-one meeting (plus private secretary, of course!) with the Minister for Disabled People of the time. They asked me:

Are there any interesting ideas around at the moment?

I was ready for the question. It just so happened that at that time I was reading a biography of one of LBJ’s great reforming predecessors, Franklin Roosevelt. I had been particularly taken with his incredibly successful G.I. Bill of 1944, that provided veterans with subsidies for college or vocational education or to receive low-interest business loans and mortgages. I wondered what an equivalent might be for disabled people in Britain — perhaps free university or vocational education that could accelerate closing the gap on degree- or suitably-qualified disabled people, giving them a better chance in later employment. I’d roughly worked out the cost and what it would take to implement, and had it written down in a two-pager, which I shared with the Minister. (Official government policy has been based on less.)

Now, as it turns out, the idea didn’t go anywhere: the window wasn’t there.* But it was good to be prepared for the question when it came.

Similarly, when you’re inside the belly of the beast — be it the NHS, a government department, wherever — you are often asked to get something done of which you have little or no idea. On such occasions you get in touch with the people you know and trust to see how they might be able to help.

These are the windows of opportunity and the blinks of time. Always be ready. Timing matters. At all times all you can do if you’re in the business of public service reform is put yourself in the right place, build credibility, be ready with a plan, and one day take the opportunity that will appear.

—

*As of 2024, the ONS reports that 25.8% of disabled people have a degree or equivalent education qualification, compared to 41.6% of non-disabled people. Conversely, 12.7% of disabled people have no education qualification, compared to 4.7% of non-disabled people. One effect of this is that non-disabled people with no qualifications have the same employment rate as more qualified disabled people, i.e. those with A-Levels or equivalent