Brimstone's Shared Leadership program promotes engagement by challenging employees to complete quick-cycle projects while living the organization's leadership values and receiving coaching from senior executives. Participants gain a valuable leadership development opportunity; sponsoring executives gain insights into the people in their organization; and the company achieves financial results from the project outcomes.

We typically measure the outcomes of Shared Leadership using two metrics – financial results and engagement scores.

The recommendations developed by project teams typically yield financial returns – in the form of expense reductions or increased revenues – far in excess of the cost of running the program. By involving hundreds of leaders from across the organization in the development of these solutions, Shared Leadership increases the likelihood that project recommendations will be implemented efficiently and effectively.

Engagement scores, though a "softer" metric, are often where the biggest improvements are seen. For one client, employees were segmented into three distinct engagement profiles – Highly Engaged, Moderately Engaged and Disengaged – and measured once a year via an employee survey. In the year that featured the Shared Leadership program, the client was able to increase the Highly Engaged percentage by 5%; increase the Moderately Engaged percentage by 5%; and decrease the Disengaged percentage by 10%. On these results, the firm that conducted the survey commented: "We work with a huge range of firms. This is among the strongest results that we have ever seen in one year." This same firm has shown that for every 5% increase in engagement, companies have seen a 0.4% increase in operating margin.