The Control and Create quadrants are opposite forms of innovation. The Create form of innovation produces big, breakthrough innovation, while Control produces incremental improvements. While green thinkers want to promote deviance, red thinkers want to eliminate it. The visionaries of the green quadrant value experimentation and independence, while the pragmatic innovators in the red quadrant value order and structure. The difference here is in the magnitude of innovation or how much innovation each of these approaches produces.
The Collaborate and Compete quadrants are at odds with each other: the growth of a yellow organization is slow-moving with a sustainable, long-term payout, while the growth of a blue organization is fast-paced yet not sustainable in the long-term horizon. The difference here is in the speed of innovation or how fast innovation happens.
These kinds of conflicts are positive because they produce new, hybrid forms of innovation that wouldn’t be possible without the interaction of these varying viewpoints. Thus, you need all four types of innovation in your organizations to continue to innovate and create something new.