the habit."31 This working of the brain is Page 244 recognized in grouping of motions, such as "playing for position."32 Scientific Management provides the groups, the habit, and the stimulus, all according to standard methods, so that the result is largely predictable.
Method of Establishing Such Groups in the Worker's Brain.
— The standard elements of Scientific Management afford units for such groups. Eventually, with the use of such elements in instruction cards, would be formed, in the minds of the worker, such groups of units as would aid in foreseeing results, just as the foreseeing of groups of moves aids the expert chess or checker player. The size and number of such groups would indicate the skill of the worker.
That such skill may be gained quickest, Scientific Management synthesizes the units into definite groups, and teaches these to the workers as groups.
Teaching Done by Means of Motion Cycles. — The best group is that which completes the simplest cycle of performance. This enables the worker to associate certain definite motions, to make these into a habit, and to concentrate his attention upon the cycle as a whole, and not upon the elementary motions of which it is composed.
For example — The cycle of the pick and dip process of bricklaying is to pick up a brick and a trowel full of mortar simultaneously and deposit them on the wall simultaneously.33 The string mortar method Page 245 has two cycles, which are, first to pick a certain number of trowelfuls of mortar