Workshops and Design Thinking makes it possible to align people quicker and make them feel involved.

The data

In their research about the impact of Design Thinking at IBM they didn't measure how people felt involved. But they measured team alignment.

Organizations slashed the time required for initial design and alignment by 75%.

The teams by using Design Thinking were able to be aligned much quicker. In my very own personal opinion, I feel that often alignment takes ages because people don't feel involved and have to show that they disagree or haven't been a part of the decision making so far.

Remember
It's quite hard to measure the emotional aspect of "feeling involved". But as shown by studies like the one about the IKEA effect, being part of the building process makes people feel involved and give more value to the work that is done. 

The personal experience

I see today, that many organizations, especially in the non profit or public sector, put a great deal of importance in having the whole organization involved. And workshops make that possible.

In my personal experience, I have seen how powerful it is to include early those who often aren't included in collaborative sessions. Often these are the "little hands" that then later make the projects possible. By having those "little hands" involved from the start projects are just smoother as problems surface before they appear at the end of the chain. 

And having those "little hands" involved from the start makes them feel respected and therefore even more motivated to produce great work.