C4 Center for Negotiation

The C4 Center for Negotiation offers advice on success-critical negotiations, professional negotiation training and insights from practical negotiation research.

Certified Professional Business Negotiator

Our paths to certification. Professional Business Negotiation [PBN] (Modular): The digital certificate training in 10 one-day modules. Advanced Business Negotiation [ABN]: Four onsite negotiation seminars of 2-3 days each.

C4 Center for Negotiation in the press

The C4 Center for Negotiation is regularly asked to comment on or explain current negotiation situations in politics and business.

C4 Center for Negotiation

Life is negotiation: Negotiations can save lives. Resolving deadlock. Ending conflicts. Turning opposing positions into progress and opponents into partners.

Das C4 Center for Negotiation bietet Beratung bei erfolgskritischen Verhandlungen, eine professionelle Verhandlungsausbildung sowie Erkenntnisse aus der praxistauglichen Verhandlungsforschung.

The Center for Negotiation at the Institute for Crisis, Change and Conflict Communication has set itself the task of optimizing the performance of people and organizations in negotiations on the basis of current applied science.

The Center for Negotiation offers

Strategic negotiation counselling and negotiation support,
Scientific negotiation profiling (type analysis),
professional and certified negotiation training based on the F.I.R.E. Business Negotiation System®,
camera-supported negotiation simulations,
development of organisation-specific negotiation structures,
international cooperation partners and
studies from practical negotiation research.

The Center for Negotiation combines practice-oriented training and further education with application-oriented research in the field of success-critical negotiations. The modular, ten-part “Certified Professional Business Negotiator (CPBN)” training course is unique in Europe. In an international context, we work together with negotiation experts, colleges and universities in China, Russia, Latin America and the USA and are represented in the “Global Negotiation Competence Network”.

C4 Expertise

The Center for Negotiation at Quadriga University Berlin has played a key role in the development of a negotiation system tailored to the requirements of business. The comprehensive F.I.R.E. Business Negotiation System® was developed on the basis of scientific studies of negotiations in extreme situations as well as negotiations in a political and economic context. Based on this professional foundation, the C4 Center for Negotiation enables you and your team to stay on the offensive in any negotiation situation.

C4 Expertise

Negotiations training

The Center for Negotiation prepares managers for the challenges of professional negotiations in a multi-stage modular training system. In addition, the Center for Negotiation is the only institution in Europe to offer certification as a “Certified Professional Negotiator” (CPN-C4).

Negotiation consulting

The Center for Negotiation supports companies, politicians and organisations in negotiations that are critical to success. When putting together negotiation teams, we offer special psychological categorisation procedures that enable participants to gain a clear view of their negotiation profile.

Inhouse Training

From two or three-day seminars with theoretical basics and individually designed practical exercises, to a programme with five individual training days that build on each other, to a one-year certified advanced programme with 10 modules with an online platform and e-learning – we improve your strategic negotiation skills, provide you with practical psychological knowledge, sharpen your language skills and prepare you comprehensively for the specific challenges of your negotiations.

C4 Methodology

A successful negotiation does not just begin at the negotiating table. Negotiations must be well prepared, strategically planned and tactically implemented. Small factors often determine serious consequences.

The negotiation structure defines a framework that provides security and stability. A clear structure shows where we stand and how we can control the negotiation process, the content, the time, the relationship and ultimately the result.

The perfect negotiation structure is a concept of consistent control, divided into several phases, developed and tested by the CIA and FBI for success-critical negotiations, and also tried and tested by the BKA.

For our negotiation seminars, the principle of the secret services and security authorities has been transferred into a concept that also leads to success in private and business negotiations. The F.I.R.E. – Business Negotiation System® is the adaptation of the negotiation system of the secret services and security authorities for business use. It is a completely independent system for asserting your own interests in irrational, difficult and emotional negotiations. The F.I.R.E. – Business Negotiation System® was developed by Thorsten Hofmann, former BKA investigator, crisis negotiator and director of the Center for Negotiation, among others.

The F.I.R.E. – Business Negotiation System®. F.I.R.E. is an acronym for Facial-, Instrumental-, Relational- & Emotional-Issues.

FACIAL stands for the precise observation of emotional changes in the other person’s body language. The basis for this is the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), a coding method used by psychologists worldwide to describe facial expressions. The FACS is therefore a technique for recognizing facial expressions and emotions.

Behind INSTRUMENTAL are 130 basic tactics and instruments for asserting your own interests in negotiations. These basic tactics can in turn be used flexibly in countless combinations at the negotiating table. This starts with the strategic approach and leads to a wide variety of operational and linguistic tactics and the use of manipulative triggers.

RELATIONAL deals with the professional development and use of relationships before, during and after the negotiation, i.e. with so-called “tactical empathy”. This also includes the precise development of a negotiation profile in order to be able to accurately assess and “treat” the other party.

EMOTIONAL stands for dealing with your own emotions and managing the emotions of your counterpart. Negotiations are won in your own head. This is why the development of a suitable inner attitude to the upcoming negotiation and the four basic skills of mental strength are emphasized as very important points. The main focus is on factors that induce and reduce stress. Dealing with irrational and manipulative behavior is also discussed.

The F.I.R.E. – Concept of Control®. The core of the entire system is the F.I.R.E.-Concept of Control®, which conveys negotiation techniques and strategies to sustainably improve the efficiency and effectiveness of negotiation situations. It gives the user the confidence to know where he stands in the negotiation and how he can control it. It helps them to “read” the negotiation. Negotiations are characterized by procedural, subtle and indirect changes in the opponent’s behaviour. The opponent is guided through the negotiation in a consistent and controlled manner, but treated with empathy.

In the Center for Negotiation’s seminars and full training courses, the F.I.R.E. – Business Negotiation System® is used to convey in detailed steps which tools are available to achieve negotiation goals even in difficult situations. The modular structure of the knowledge transfer ensures that the learning content can be sequentially incorporated into everyday mechanisms.