Establishing objectives is definitely a top down exercise. Top management has to establish the overall ovjectives first. If you are the owner of a company or president of an organization, what is your market? What are your products and services now and what will they be in the future? Once this is established, in writing, you need to establish responsibility for the various areas of your plan.
Talk with your senior management leaders and make sure they understand what the goals are for the company and each of their departments. Once the goals are identified with each department manger (not dictated wo them) you need a means of monitoring the program. Bring in the techniques of management by objectives. Prepare a written list of objectives with dates for accomplishment and make sure each of the top managers has a copy. It’s a good idea to give all the managers’ goals to each one of the mangers. This will improve communications, understanding and teamwork.