For decades, performance management has been a top-down, one-way street. It’s a “push” system. Once a year, managers, often with little to no real data, "push" a subjective judgment onto a passive employee.
This model is universally despised. Leaders are frustrated by the "biased, gut-feel" decisions it produces , and employees are demotivated by a process 86% of them feel isn't even a "fair picture of their performance".
This is the Performance Paradox: organisations are clinging to their least effective, most biased, and most distrusted process to manage their employees' #1 demand: career growth. The result? Your best people are leaving, driven away by the very system that was supposed to retain them.
But what if you flipped the entire model on its head?
What if, instead of "pushing" judgment, you created a system that empowered employees to "pull" the insights they need? The results are not just theoretical. According to Gartner, a strategy of "empowering employee agency" by "enabling them to own and schedule feedback conversations" can double optimal performance rates.
This is the "Push-to-Pull" revolution. This article explains what it is, why it's so critical, and how to build a system that actually works.
Section 1: The "Push" System: A Crisis of Confidence and Fairness
Before you can build a new model, you must be honest about why the old one is a catastrophic failure. The traditional annual review is not just a "costly, time-consuming" process; it's an active liability.
A Crisis of Confidence: Leaders don't trust it. Research from Gartner shows fewer than 18% of HR leaders believe performance management is effective at achieving its primary objective. C-suite leaders are tired of making their most expensive talent decisions—promotions, compensation, succession planning—based on "gut-feel," anecdotes, and office politics.
A Crisis of Fairness: Employees don't trust it. They see it as a backward-looking judgment (a tool to "inform administrative decisions") rather than a forward-looking development tool (a way to "help people improve"). It's a system plagued by recency bias and unfairness , leaving high performers feeling unseen and demotivated.
This broken "push" system is a primary driver of attrition. Your employees crave growth, and this process signals stagnation.
Section 2: The "Pull" Revolution: What It Means to "Own Your Feedback"
The solution is a fundamental transfer of power. The new model, advocated by both Gartner and the CIPD, is a "pull" system. The employee is no longer the passive recipient of a review; they are the active owner of their development.
This isn't just about encouraging managers to "give more feedback." It's a structural change in ownership.
This "pull" model is a direct response to the "consumerisation" of the workplace. Employees "now expect the same customisation of experiences at work that they enjoy as consumers". They want a "hyper-personalised" career path, not a "one-size-fits-all" annual review.
When you "empower employee agency" and enable them to "own and schedule" their feedback, you transform the entire dynamic. The conversation is no longer a manager's "push" of, "Here is your rating." It becomes an employee's "pull" of, "Here are my goals, and here is the support I need from you to achieve them."
The result, as Gartner found, is a potential doubling of optimal performance. You're tapping into an employee's intrinsic motivation for growth and giving them the agency to pursue it.
Section 3: The Critical Flaw: You Can't "Pull" Subjective Opinions
Here is the step where most "pull" initiatives fail.
A leader hears this, tells their managers to have "more coaching conversations," and changes nothing else. The result? An employee now "pulls" for feedback and gets... the exact same "gut-feel," subjective opinions, and recency bias, just delivered more often.
A "pull" model cannot function on the old, biased inputs.
If an employee is to truly own their development, they cannot rely solely on a manager's flawed memory or the subjective, human-biased opinions of a traditional 360-degree review. To build on their strengths, they need an objective starting point. They need radical, objective self-awareness.
Without objective data, your new "pull" system is just a faster, more agile way of reinforcing the same biases that broke your "push" system.
Section 4: How to Build a True "Pull" System: The Power of Objective Evidence
To truly empower your employees, you must change the data source. You must move from subjective opinions to objective evidence.
The foundation of a successful "pull" model is a platform that makes performance, progress, and goals visible, factual, and continuous.
For Growing Businesses (SMBs): Your enemy is the "Admin Black Hole" —the clunky, time-sucking spreadsheets and forms that are based on 100% opinion. The solution is a platform like SolasPerform, which is built for this "New Way".
It Aligns People to Strategy by making company goals visible to everyone.
It uses an Automated Evidence Engine to help users track progress with real facts (from docs, emails, project tools), not just feelings.
This removes the bias and "admin burden" and turns the review into a fast, future-focused, evidence-based conversation about growth.
For Large Enterprises: Your enemy is "Gut-Feel Management" on a massive scale. You are making multi-million pound decisions on promotions and strategy, and you are blind to your biggest risks. The solution is a true "system of intelligence" like SolasOS.
It provides objective, real-time intelligence on employee behaviour, sentiment, and performance , moving far beyond "subjective annual surveys".
It gives you "ground-truth visibility" to see talent risks like burnout and disengagement before they lead to attrition.
It helps you identify your true top performers based on a holistic, objective view of their impact, finally allowing you to reduce bias in promotions.
When you provide objective data, you give your employees a real, factual foundation to stand on. They are no longer "pulling" for a manager's subjective opinion. They are "pulling" real evidence of their contributions to have a meaningful, strategic conversation about their future.
Conclusion: Stop Pushing, Start Empowering
The "push" model of performance management is a relic of a bygone era. It's a biased, demotivating system that is actively driving your best people to competitors who offer the growth they crave.
You can double your performance, but you must be willing to make the shift.
Empower your employees. Give them the "agency" to own their development. But don't stop there. Give them what they really need to succeed: a platform built on objective evidence and ground truth.
Stop pushing biased judgments. Start empowering your team with the objective, data-driven tools they need to pull themselves—and your organisation—forward.
Would you like to explore how to replace your biased, "gut-feel" review process with an objective, evidence-based platform?