Down in the right hand corner, next to the little foot prints set that to "Sub Object Rotate" then when you press Z it will re-focus and rotate the viewport on whatever is selected, be it verts polys or objects. Then hold down Alt + Middle Mouse Button to drag and rotate around.
Make sure you're in perspective view, select the object, hit Z to center it, then use alt+MMB to rotate the view. Or select the orbit tool in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Edit: That's using 3ds Max.