Solution

From Input to Step I : First word interchanges its position with the third word, fourth word interchanges its position with the eighth word and fifth word interchanges its position with the seventh word. Second and sixth words remain at their original position. (say pattern 1)   From Step I to Step II: First and second words interchange their position with fourth and third words respectively.  Fifth and sixth words interchange their position with eighth and seventh words respectively. (say pattern 2)   From Step II to Step III : First word interchanges its position with the fifth word, second word interchanges its position with the fourth word. Sixth word interchanges its position with the eighth word. Third and seventh words remain at their original position (say pattern 3) From Step III to Step IV : again pattern 1 is being repeated.   Machine is following pattern 1, pattern 2 and pattern 3 in alternate steps. Now, we can write the further steps on the basis of the patterns. In step V, pattern 2 will be followed and in Step VI, pattern 3 will be followed. We need to write the steps till we get the input again.   In order to make things easier, let us represent the words digitally from 1 to 8. Then we have:   Input:  the     organisation   focus     soon     switched      to      finding     new                 1            2                     3            4            5                 6           7            8We can see above in the solution table that the input is getting repeated in the 6 ^th step. That means input will be repeated again in the 12 ^th step. Therefore, Step XIV = Step II.