A new report from KPMG confirms something I have been saying from stages across 32 countries for more than 30 years: organizations are dramatically overspending on technology and dramatically underspending on the one investment that actually drives performance. Their people.
The numbers are striking. According to KPMG research, executives are twice as likely to invest in new technology as they are in training employees. And while 57% of business leaders said improving performance and efficiency was a top priority, fewer than 10% said developing stronger workforce leadership training programs was a top objective.
That gap between what organizations say they want and where they actually put their money is not just a strategic miscalculation. It is costing them the very results they are chasing.
The KPMG Finding That Should Stop Every Executive in Their Tracks
KPMG Deputy Chair Atif Zaim put it plainly: “New tools alone don’t drive performance.” His firm’s research found that technology investments consistently fall flat when organizations fail to invest in building the human skills required to use those tools effectively.
The report goes further. Firms that do not invest enough in developing their people to maximize new tools “often struggle to realize their full value.” In other words, the AI investment your board just approved may produce a fraction of its projected return if you do not simultaneously invest in the leadership and workforce development that makes adoption successful.
This is not a technology problem. It is a leadership training problem. And the organizations that recognize that distinction now will have a meaningful advantage over those that recognize it after the fact.
Why Technology Investments Keep Falling Flat
I have worked with organizations across every major industry for more than three decades. The pattern that KPMG is now documenting with data is one I have seen play out countless times on the ground.
An organization identifies a performance gap. The board approves a technology investment to close it. The software gets deployed. Months later, adoption is low, the expected productivity gains have not materialized, and leadership is frustrated. So they buy more technology, or a different technology, and the cycle repeats.
What almost never gets examined honestly in that cycle is the leadership layer. How managers are communicating the purpose and value of the new tools. Whether employees have been genuinely developed to use them effectively. Whether the organizational culture supports the kind of adaptive, continuous learning that technology adoption actually requires.
Technology does not change behavior. Leadership does. And without deliberate investment in leadership training alongside every major technology initiative, you are essentially buying a high-performance engine and putting it in a car with no steering wheel.
The Real Cost of Underspending on Leadership Training
The KPMG data also reveals that 81% of executives said boards and owners have voiced increased expectations for their organizations’ ability to adapt to disruption. That expectation is reasonable. The business environment is moving faster than at any point in history, and adaptability is increasingly a baseline requirement for organizational survival.
But adaptability does not come from technology. It comes from people. Specifically from leaders at every level who have the skills, mindset, and confidence to guide their teams through uncertainty, communicate clearly during disruption, make good decisions with incomplete information, and develop the people around them continuously.
KPMG’s recommendations make this explicit. The firm calls for incorporating continuous learning into the fabric of the company, not as a program or an annual initiative but as a cultural operating principle. That kind of cultural shift does not happen through a software deployment. It requires leaders who model learning themselves, who develop their teams deliberately, and who create the psychological safety that makes continuous growth possible.
The organizations that build that culture are the ones that will navigate the next wave of disruption most effectively. And the ones that keep reaching for technology as the primary solution will keep finding that their expensive tools are producing a fraction of their potential value.
Adaptability Is a Leadership Skill First
Zaim’s conclusion from the KPMG research is worth quoting directly: “Adaptability is a recipe. It comes from aligning how organizations work, how they develop people, and how decisions are made.”
Every element of that recipe is a leadership training outcome. How organizations work is determined by the decisions and habits of their leaders. How they develop people depends entirely on whether managers have the coaching skills and the organizational mandate to invest in their teams. How decisions get made reflects the quality of leadership development at every level of the hierarchy.
The companies getting ahead, as Zaim notes, are moving beyond isolated fixes to disciplined and coordinated execution. That coordination requires leaders who have been developed to lead at the level the current environment demands. Not leaders who were effective five years ago and have been coasting since. Not leaders who have been given new tools without the development required to use them. Leaders who have been genuinely invested in and who are growing continuously alongside the organizations they serve.
What the Right Investment Balance Actually Looks Like
I am not arguing against technology investment. AI and the tools built on it are genuinely transformative and organizations that ignore them will fall behind. The KPMG data is not a case against technology. It is a case for balance.
Every significant technology investment should be accompanied by a deliberate investment in the human development required to maximize it. That means leadership training for the managers responsible for driving adoption. Workforce development programs that build the specific skills employees need to use new tools effectively. And a cultural investment in continuous learning that makes adaptation a habit rather than a crisis response.
The organizations that get this balance right will compound their technology investments rather than chase returns that never materialize. The ones that keep treating leadership training as a cost to be minimized will keep wondering why their expensive technology is not producing the results the vendor promised.
The KPMG data makes the case clearly. The only question is whether your organization will act on it before or after your competitors do.
Where to Start
If your organization has been overinvesting in technology and underinvesting in leadership development, the starting point is an honest assessment of where your leadership gaps actually are and what development would produce the greatest return against your specific performance priorities.
Whether you are looking for a leadership keynote that reframes how your executive team thinks about the people investment, a leadership workshop that builds specific skills through real application, or executive coaching that develops your senior leaders against their specific performance priorities, the conversation starts here. Contact Dr. Rick Goodman at 954-218-5325 or info@rickgoodman.com to talk through what the right investment looks like for your organization.