There is a striking parallel between nations and large corporations.

They are born out of enthusiasm, grow in an unstructured manner, and often end up becoming stuck in their own certainty. The history of France, built on centralization, is a microcosm of that of many industrial groups: the same desire for control, the same virtues, and sometimes the same dangers.

The temptation of corporate Versailles

When a company grows, it naturally seeks to protect itself from disorder.

It creates a headquarters, structures, procedures, and “centers of excellence.”

Everything goes up to the top, everything comes back down through official channels.

It’s a reassuring tendency: it makes us believe we have better control over complexity.

But the risk is an old one: the center, which has become the “corporate Versailles,” begins to think it knows better than those who live the daily reality of the market, the laboratory, or the field.

So, like the kings of France before the Revolution, it surrounds itself with a court of experts, rituals, and dashboards—and ends up no longer hearing the murmurings of reality.

During my professional career, I have had the opportunity to interact with a variety of operational and organizational models:

The balanced model: temperate monarchy

A number of organizations manage to strike the right balance.

Their center is strong, providing vision and ensuring consistency, but local entities retain the freedom to adapt, experiment, and innovate.

It is a form of temperate monarchy, where authority does not stifle creativity.

The headquarters enlightens, guides, and inspires—without stifling.

This type of organization remains consistent without becoming rigid, unified without being uniform.

The secret lies in trust: that of a center that accepts that intelligence is not limited to its walls, and that of the periphery that recognizes the value of a shared vision.

The decentralized model: the republic of provinces

Other companies have opted for a more organic, almost artisanal model.

They prefer local freedom to global symmetry.

Each entity acts as an autonomous workshop, rooted in its territory, responsible for its own choices, but faithful to the same philosophy.

Here, the link between headquarters and sites is not administrative: it is cultural.

This model does not always shine in terms of speed, but it compensates with its human depth and adaptability.

It is the France of cathedrals rather than Versailles: each construction site has its own form, but they all build the same structure.

The hypertrophied model: the temptation of the large center

Finally, after years of diversity, some companies seek to “rationalize.”

They want to harmonize, globalize, and standardize.

The intention is good: to ensure consistency, avoid redundancies, and strengthen the visibility of headquarters.

But by trying too hard to control, they end up sterilizing the organization.

Decisions become slow, creativity dies out, and local teams stop taking risks.

The organization gains in clarity but loses vitality.

It becomes a beautiful machine—but one whose springs are gradually loosening.

It’s the same paradox that great civilizations have experienced:

when the center becomes too perfect, life gradually disappear.

The cycles of power

Here we see the classic cycle of empires, whether political or industrial:

Decentralized expansion: pioneers innovate, disorder is fertile. Centralized structuring: order prevails, rules are established. Bureaucratic rigidity: fear of the unexpected replaces confidence. Crisis or rebirth: depending on the center’s ability to breathe new life into its margins.

Civilizations die when those in power stop listening to their provinces.

Companies decline when headquarters no longer perceives the life of its subsidiaries and factories.

Towards organic centralization

The challenge is not to choose between centralization and autonomy, but to create a dynamic movement between the two.

A center that guides without dominating, that coordinates without controlling.

A center that acts not as a distant brain, but as a heart: it pulses, it connects, it energizes.

The future belongs to organizations capable of combining global rigor with local sensitivity—

those where strategy flows down, but experience flows up.

It is this circulation, not pure verticality, that gives the whole its breathing space.

Conclusion: the respiration of empires

Nations and companies die from the same disease: deafness at the center.

They are reborn when they understand that intelligence is diffuse, that it circulates, that it feeds on exchange.

Centralization, when used in moderation, gives strength.

When taken to excess, it becomes a slow suffocation.

An organization, like a civilization, does not last because it controls everything,but because it listens to what makes it alive.

Emmanuel de Ryckel

(Reflections on industrial governance and the dynamics of civilizations)