Chaos

If you're rewarded for your ability to manage chaos, does it give you incentive to create more chaos so that you can manage it?  Or at least to not prevent chaos?

Some seem to think that IT is chaotic by nature of being IT.  Rather than designing and implementing efficient, scalable processes, they manage the daily fire fight, managing issue logs as their daily process rather than designing fixes that create better systems.  On top of that, when management measures success solely by looking at one's ability to fight the fires, are they not incentivized to have the fire to fight?  If they prevent all fires, they will appear to be doing nothing.  Why not reward people for implementing good solutions that prevent chaos?

This isn't just in IT, you see it all over the place.  The complexities of IT systems certainly lend themselves to the chaotic nature, however.

When you see someone constantly fighting fires, don't you start to suspect that they're starting them, or at least not preventing them in the first place?