Pavel Rzhegak and Good to Great: planning the future of Direct

Pavel Rzhegak, one of the key people at Direct, has reopened Jim Collins’s book Good to Great after more than ten years. Together with his team, he wants to use its principles to plan the company’s next stage of growth.

He spoke about it in Forbes’s “Book of My Life” series, in which prominent figures from Czech business and other fields present the books that shaped their thinking and careers.

Asked what it means to be exceptional, Rzhegak recalls not a management example but the legendary racehorse Železník. Together with jockey Josef Váňa, the horse won the famous Velká pardubická steeplechase four times. For Rzhegak, the horse became a symbol of the kind of company Direct wanted to be.

He also drew inspiration from Collins’s book: Rzhegak applied its principles while building the firm. Now, more than ten years later, he is turning to them again, this time with an eye on Direct’s future.