Discover the secret system quietly driving your business forward—or holding it back.
At first, everything clicks. The product is taking off. The team is humming. Decisions are fast, execution is smooth, and growth feels effortless.
Then, slowly—or sometimes all at once—progress stalls. Teams get tangled. Priorities blur. Work that used to flow now feels stuck. You try to fix it: more people, more process, more pressure. But nothing works for long. The harder you push, the more sluggish things become.
What if the problem isn’t the actions you’re taking but the hidden systemic forces that actually govern your results?
Liquid invites you to see your business differently. Not as a collection of teams and tasks, but as a complex adaptive system—one that’s constantly shifting, often in ways you can’t see or predict. Beneath every team dynamic, delivery delay, or organizational bottleneck is a hidden world shaping outcomes. And unless you can see that world, you’re destined to repeat the same frustrating patterns, over and over again, as you grow.
Drawing on decades of experience as CTOs, coaches, and systems thinkers, Kathy Keating, Etienne de Bruin, and Scott Graves reveal why companies stall as they scale—and how leaders can restore clarity, momentum, and adaptability. Liquid introduces the four emergent properties all effectively run technology organizations exhibit: the CTO Sentinel. CTOs and CEOs will gain real-world insights they can use to shift their company into the productive state of continuous flow.
If you’ve ever wondered why your teams slow down when they should be speeding up, or why scaling seems to introduce more drag than lift, this book will change the way you see your organization—and the way you lead.
Liquid is the blueprint today’s tech leaders need. It cuts through complexity with precision, offering a clear lens into the patterns that stall growth. I’ve seen firsthand how these challenges can cripple companies—this book helps you solve them before they do.
Being a CEO of a scaling company, the reality that this book uncovers around the landmines of ignoring or ineffectively managing increasing complexity are on point. Ensuring clear channels of communication and well-defined processes to prevent misunderstandings and delays have been a critical learning in our company growth.
LIQUID offers a powerful lens for CTOs and CEOs to see—and shift—the hidden systems behind team slowdowns and complexity. A must-read for any leader scaling with intention.
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Liquid is launching
in August 2025!
Meet the Authors
Kathy Keating, Etienne de Bruin, and Scott Graves are experienced CTOs and co-founders of CTO Levels, a groundbreaking framework that helps technology executives navigate complexity as their companies scale. Together, they have led engineering organizations from early-stage startups to high-growth enterprises, founded successful companies, and advised hundreds of CTOs and CEOs worldwide.
Kathy Keating
Kathy is a CTO, board-certified director, and founder focused on advising and scaling high-growth SaaS. Kathy cultivates thriving product engineering organizations that deliver transformational growth.
Etienne de Bruin
Etienne is the founder of 7CTOs, a global peer network for technology leaders, and an executive coach focused on helping CTOs apply systems thinking to leadership.
Scott Graves
Scott is a fractional CTO for scaling startups, specializing in helping fast-growing companies navigate complexity and thrive.
