Episode 59: Reinvention with Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva in Reliability Leader Podcast by Adam Bahret

Reinventing Product Development in an Age of Disruption

In this episode, host Adam Bahret is joined by Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva—scientist, consultant, and founder of Reinvention Academy—to explore how product development must evolve to meet the demands of an increasingly turbulent world. Together, they unpack the emotional and strategic roadblocks that hold back transformation efforts, and why most change initiatives fail—not because of poor logic, but because of unaddressed fear and fatigue.

If you’re a product leader, engineer, or executive trying to implement smarter systems and more adaptive workflows, this conversation will help you unlock real transformation from the inside out.

What You’ll Learn

You’ll learn why today’s teams resist change—not from ignorance, but exhaustion—and how emotional design, collective participation, and “framing change as experimentation” can dramatically improve the adoption of new processes. Dr. Nadya breaks down how to shift from resistance to reinvention mindset, lower the perceived risk of innovation, and build a culture where small pilots turn into scalable transformation.

Who This Is For

• Engineering leaders facing resistance to process changes
• Product managers seeking faster, more adaptive development cycles
• Organizational designers and agile coaches
• Executives frustrated with “change fatigue” in their teams
• Anyone struggling to lead innovation in legacy-driven systems

3 Key Takeaways from This Episode

1. Emotional resistance beats rational data—every time.

People aren’t ignoring your PowerPoints because they’re stupid. They’re tired, scared, and burned out. Change must be designed to speak to emotion first.

2. Reinvention isn’t a project—it’s the new operating system

With business model lifespans collapsing to 1–3 years, continuous reinvention isn’t a choice. It’s a survival strategy.

3. Don’t launch decisions—run experiments.

Framing change as a low-risk experiment dramatically lowers resistance. Confidence and competence must be built with quick wins, not perfect ideas.

Resources Mentioned

• Reinvention Academy
• Global Disruption Index
• Harvard Business Review on Employee Change Fatigue
• Behavioral economics on risk framing
• Reinvention tools & pilot templates from Reinvention Academy, accessible in the Chief Reinvention Officer Handbook