In his first book Neil David Martin offers fresh and innovative thinking on the struggle to maximise performance in today's challenging business environment. The Path to Perspective is nothing short of a manifesto for business in the new millennium, a classic account of why challenging assumptions is the starting point for successful companies in the 21st Century.

Together with a compelling vision of what our organisations could be, The Path to Perspective outlines a convincing case for people-first, values-driven, free thinking business, which begins with rethinking your company's practices and priorities.

It is packed with over 40 powerful concepts and a step-by-step plan to help you translate the ideas in this book into meaningful practices for your business. The author also offers us several important and eye-opening insights, including:

Why so many companies struggle to differentiate, to attract and retain employees and customers, to maximise productivity, and to innovate successfully.

Why focusing on profit as the ultimate goal of your business is actually NOT the best way of maximising profits.

Why a focus on behaviours alone is NOT enough to bring about a shift in attitudes within your business.

"Why so many change programmes don't seem to work.

Extract 1 (from pages 36-37 of the book)

"Whether we realise it or not, our views about the practices and priorities of our business are influenced and coloured by the dominant philosophy of our time. Our accumulated knowledge and experience, intertwined with some of the broader social assumptions of 21st century developed economies (see "The Roots of Our Philosophy" below), forms the theoretical backdrop to everything we do in business. And by and large that influence is subconscious - human beings naturally develop their own philosophy about everything they observe and begin to apply it like rules to every situation, person, object and event they observe. The same is true for organisations: the collective beliefs and assumptions drive behaviour and actions.

But what if we were mistaken about certain aspects of our view of the world? That would affect everything, wouldn't it?

That might explain why we can't differentiate from our competitors, and struggle with innovation. It would also answer the question of the denial of certain aspects of organisational life that are brushed under the carpet because they don't fit in with the world-view which powers business. The same goes for the lack of purpose and direction, difficulty getting employees and customers' commitment, and the leadership deficit which affect our organisations. It may, in short, explain why the Conundrums of Capitalism remain as rife in our organisations as ever. Could the reason why we struggle so much with execution be attributed to our failure to question the biggest ideas behind what we do?

It's time we looked again at the philosophical foundations for today's business practices and priorities and understand exactly what we've assumed to be true about people and about companies. Up until now, it would appear, the majority of us have accepted these assumptions unquestioningly. We are happy to swallow the doctrines which academics, managers, and leaders offer us as proof of the infallibility of the 'system' and go along with the same traditional practices that were born in and grew out of the industrial age. So much so that any challenge to this accepted 'wisdom' is ridiculed and dismissed as preposterous. That should set alarm bells ringing! One of the big clues that something is wrong with any particular view of reality, whether it's about business or life itself, is that alternative interpretations are not tolerated. This is exactly what has happened in the world of business. We're offered one philosophy, the Old Philosophy, and nothing else."

Extract 2 (from page 73-74 of the book)

"Any honest assessment of reality within our organisations would have to acknowledge that these and other similar perceptual inaccuracies are commonplace and colour the accuracy and effectiveness of many of our most important business functions. In particular, we've based our business practices and priorities on several assumptions that have lead directly to several of the difficulties we now have in adapting to the new environment and ensuring our ongoing survival and progress. I'm referring of course, to the Realist view, the Old Philosophy discussed in the previous chapter. The way we've always done things, and perhaps even the basic principles of business we hold onto so dearly, may not provide us with the answers to the biggest questions we management theorists and practitioners wish to answer. Real perspective requires that we are completely open-minded and that we try to see things anew every time we attempt to make sense of things.

Finding perspective is based upon challenging assumptions and admitting that we human beings are actually always learning. In fact, we never stop learning. The idea of us 'knowing' things, especially based on past experience or so-called 'rules' of business, is highly valued. In an ever-changing environment, however, knowledge is constantly becoming out of date. This leads to all sorts of misinterpretations, bad decisions, poor relationships, and ineffective strategies. Entrenched thinking, assumptions, dualistic thinking, and self-deception infect our decision-making, strategy formulation and communication processes, and our recognition and reward systems."

Extract 3 (from pages 306-307 of the book)

"Let's look at the issue in simple terms. In business, as in many other areas of our experience, we have a tendency to adopt one view of the way things should be. Then we get more and more comfortable with that view until it eventually becomes our accepted and entrenched explanation of reality. This entrenchment of the mind starts off with something minor, such as the best way to carry out our jobs. But gradually we find ourselves more and more ready to settle ourselves into one view of everything we experience - our jobs, our colleagues, our families - you name it, we've got a handle on it! Unfortunately this type of mental entrenchment gets worse with experience and self-confidence, as the temptation to tell people you've got it all figured out becomes greater. And don't we just love to tell people our opinions! We've developed opinions on everything, from how to be successful in business to how to run the country! We need to find the mental strength, the courage, even the naivety, to believe that things can and should be different! The circumstances and environment of business are changing constantly and at a rate that we've never seen before. No matter what our age or experience, the combination of circumstances that faces us today is completely new. Constant re-assessment is vital to the survival of our organisations and there is little room for entrenchment of any form, even today!

Through breaking out of the barriers and constraints we have historically erected to protect ourselves and our organisations and returning to a focus on the individual and their humanity, great things are possible. We keep denying what it is to be human. We proclaim every man and woman for themselves is what life's really about. We've developed a kind of "Darwin Complex" where we believe we're locked in an animal-like fight for survival. When we think about it a bit more closely, we know in our heart of hearts that life and business do not necessarily need to be that cut-throat. Anyone who tells you life is about the mundane, or business is about control and numbers (to the exclusion of all else), is missing something magical about life and business. Our organisations are human creations designed to fulfil human needs - they should never be hijacked for self-gratification and financial greed or aggrandisement. We should never forget the humanness of business! "

Extract 4 (from Authorhouse website. Book page 100-101)

"A world of constant change demands constant re-appraisal. Yet this desire to challenge existing practices and priorities, which is similar to the search for "something better" I talked about in the Introduction, is almost completely absent from the majority of our organisations. We need to be honest about the fact that we don't necessarily have all of the answers. Past experience can provide us with fantastic guidelines and a store of successful and unsuccessful ways of dealing with problems from the past. We need to be extremely careful, however, of applying our past experience to the present without first checking that our view of reality is as clear as possible. Finding ways forward or solutions to the problems we face is ALWAYS a 'tentative', 'open' and 'continuous' endeavor which requires us to have an open mind and a learning attitude. It's frightening when we look at the picture of business reality which we've created, as we did in Chapter 1, and realise how much of it is based on assumptions.

Somewhere along the line we've stopped questioning what we're doing, why we're doing it and what's most important to us. We desperately need to think again! It's true that traditional management practices have helped us immensely in achieving great things within our organisations and we shouldn't disregard history as a source of guidance for the present, huge amounts of change or not! Yet in contrast to the fast-moving and dynamic business context, the modern day organisation seems to be stubbornly clinging onto practices that may no longer be serving their best interests. What seems to be happening is that holding onto our assumptions has become more important than questioning their validity. And banning the questioning of assumptions is extremely dangerous in any situation. The tenets of business wisdom really need re-appraising and measuring against the only true yardstick that we have available to us - the efficacy of any organisation, idea or practice in fulfilling human needs and bringing value to human beings.

In the face of significant changes to the business environment it is surprising that the general feeling within the majority of our organisations does not seem to be one of urgency or concern. The climate in the corridors, offices, and meeting rooms of many of the country's finest organisations might be summed up by the word 'comfortable'. In fact, I'm pretty confident that the majority of organisations in the developed world fall into the category of "we're fine as we are, thank you very much". More often than not, the act of questioning established business practices and priorities is met with nothing short of absolute indignation. And yet questioning things is exactly what businesses need. "