Similarly to people with addictions, who rarely acknowledge they have big problems, most software development teams suffer from severe technical and process issues but are blind to them or simply ignore them.

The more time your employees, including your CTO, spend "inside the system", the more they incline to accept its rules, to the point of becoming defenders of the status quo.

Because we're unable to smell own odor, you can:

❶ Invite an unbiased person/people for an independent audit; code, architecture, or process review. Sometimes, a good workshop helps to shake up people.

❷ Try "Craftsman Swaps" – temporarily exchange top people with other company/department/team. I've seen "swaps" only ~5 times in my life, but it always worked like a charm.

❸ Inject some professionalism by temporarily hiring people from a good software craftsmanship shop, so they work side-by-side with your employees: reduce blind spots, help see, prioritize, and fix problems.