Keep what you've got, by giving it all away.

Today's business is about transparency.

A clever marketing ploy by UK sandwich-and-coffee chain Pret a Manger seems to me to epitomise the new ecology of business. On their website, on their takeaway bags, and now in a book, they provide the recipes and list the ingredients needed to remake their tasty food. It says: 'Want to reproduce our chicken wrap? Here's how'.

The clever part, of course, is that few people ever will. They're giving away their secrets because it's actually good for business. It provides a great marketing opportunity for Pret a Manger to tell the story of how much care goes into the preparation of their food, and the importance of carefully selecting the right ingredients. The subtle indication is that once you really know what goes into making a particular sandwich, salad or soup, they seem much better value.

But there's another way in which Pret's transparency is good for business, and that is because it sets their standards. With this marketing campaign, they are nailing their colours to the mast, and declaring their values. 'This is how we do things', it proclaims. It is a public commitment to quality and accountability.

This serves as a motivational aid to the staff across the Pret chain, to ensure they live up to claims made by their marketing, as well as an acknowledgement of the standards they have already achieved.

Motivation and transparency are at the heart of the new business economy. Defensive, paranoid organisations, crippled by a culture of secrecy and protectionism, will find themselves left behind both by customers, and an increasingly competitive recruitment market. People won't want to buy from defensive organisations and they won't want to work for them.

Our business is founded on meeting the needs of today's agile business, not yesterday's lumbering corporations. We're happy to share the secrets of successful motivation and give tactical insights to running successful incentives, because we know it shows our strengths.