Identity Theft
Identity Theft is a creative thinking exercise in which participants identify a creative person, thinker, or leader they admire and then systematically brainstorm how that person would approach their current problem. By adopting another perspective -- "What would Frida Kahlo do? What would Steve Jobs argue?" -- participants access thinking styles and values different from their habitual patterns and generate approaches to a problem that their own perspective would not produce.
Structure
Setup
Participants identify a current problem, challenge, or creative question they are working on. The facilitator introduces the exercise: select a creative person, historical figure, or leader whose thinking style or values differ meaningfully from your own.
Adopting the Perspective
Participants write or discuss: How does this person see the world? What do they value? What questions would they ask? What assumptions would they challenge? What would they refuse to accept about how the problem is currently framed?
Problem Through the New Lens
Participants apply the borrowed perspective to their problem: What would this person notice that you have been missing? What would they try? What would they dismiss? What would they prioritize differently?
Generating Ideas
Participants brainstorm approaches to the problem from within the borrowed perspective, generating ideas they would not have reached from their own viewpoint. Ideas are recorded without evaluation.
Return and Synthesis
Participants return to their own perspective and review what the borrowed viewpoint generated. They identify which ideas are worth pursuing and what the exercise revealed about their own assumptions.
How to Teach It
Objectives
Identity Theft develops perspective flexibility -- the ability to temporarily inhabit a different cognitive and values framework -- and breaks the tunnel vision that comes from working inside the same mental model repeatedly.
How to Explain It
"Pick someone whose mind you admire -- someone who sees the world differently than you do. Now step into their shoes. How do they see your problem? What do they notice that you've been missing? What would they try? Borrow their brain for ten minutes."
Scaffolding
Provide a short list of example figures to choose from if participants struggle to identify someone, or allow the group to nominate figures collectively. The exercise is most valuable when the chosen figure's perspective is genuinely different from the participant's habitual one -- choosing a figure who confirms existing thinking produces little new territory.
Common Pitfalls
Participants sometimes use the borrowed perspective to produce ideas they already had, simply attributed to someone else. The coaching note is to push for ideas that the participant would not have reached on their own: the goal is genuine perspective shift, not rationalization.
In Applied Settings
Learning Objectives
In applied settings, Identity Theft develops cognitive flexibility and the ability to break out of habitual problem-solving patterns. It is particularly useful in situations where a team or individual has been working on the same problem for an extended period and has exhausted the approaches their own perspective can generate.
Workplace Transfer
The exercise transfers to creative problem-solving, product development, strategic planning, and any context where novel thinking is required. Teams that practice Identity Theft report encountering assumptions they did not know they were making and generating approaches that their usual ideation processes could not produce. The technique is also applicable in customer empathy work: understanding a customer through the lens of someone who would design for them differently.
Facilitation Context
Identity Theft is used in innovation workshops, design thinking sessions, creative team development, and leadership programs focused on adaptive thinking. It works well as an individual reflection exercise, in pairs, or in small groups. No prior improv experience required.
Debrief Framing
Ask participants: "What did your chosen person notice that you had been missing? What idea did you reach from their perspective that you would not have reached on your own? What does that tell you about your own assumptions?"
Skills Developed
Worth Reading
See all books →
Improv Ideas
A Book of Games and Lists
Mary Ann Kelley; Justine Jones
Brain Disruption
Radical Innovation in Business Through Improv
Bruce Montgomery; Gail Montgomery
The Applied Improvisation Mindset
Tools for Transforming Individuals, Organizations, and Communities
Theresa Robbins Dudeck; Caitlin McClure
The Improv Mindset
How to Make Improvisation Your Superpower for Success
Keith Saltojanes
The Improv Mindset
Change Your Brain. Change Your Business.
Gail Montgomery; Bruce T. Montgomery
Theatrical Improvisation, Consciousness, and Cognition
Clayton D. Drinko
Related Exercises
The Pineapple
The Pineapple is an applied exercise in which a randomly named object becomes the shared focal point for a group brainstorm, with participants using the object as a springboard for generating connections, analogies, and ideas across any domain. The exercise trains lateral thinking and the habit of finding unexpected value in arbitrary starting points.
Name the Monster
Name the Monster is a reflective exercise in which participants identify and name the internal critic, fear, or resistance that arises for them in improvisation or creative work. By giving the inner critic a distinct name and persona, the exercise creates psychological distance from self-limiting thought patterns, making them easier to recognize and set aside during performance or rehearsal.
Creative Inspiration
Creative Inspiration is a category of applied improvisation exercises that use unexpected prompts, arbitrary constraints, and non-linear starting points to spark creative thinking and generate innovative approaches to familiar problems. The exercises work by disrupting habitual thinking patterns: participants are forced to make associations and connections they would not reach through direct analytical approaches. They are used in innovation, ideation, and creative problem-solving programs.
Question Storming
Question Storming is an applied improvisation exercise from Max Dickins' Improvise! in which participants brainstorm questions rather than answers about a challenge. By reframing the creative process away from solutions and toward inquiry, the exercise reveals hidden assumptions, opens new angles of exploration, and demonstrates that asking the right question is often more valuable than generating quick answers.
Name and Life Hack
Name and Life Hack is an introductory exercise in which each participant shares their name and a practical tip, shortcut, or small discovery they have found genuinely useful in daily life. The exercise creates an immediate sense of mutual helpfulness within the group, surfaces unexpected common ground, and provides a memorable anchor for each person's name.
Motivation
Motivation is an applied improv exercise that explores the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation by having participants play characters or engage in tasks driven by different types of motivational fuel. The exercise reveals how motivation quality affects group behavior, creative engagement, and collaborative generosity -- making the difference between performed participation and genuine contribution visible and discussable.
The Lineage
Explore the schools and structures that influenced or evolved from Identity Theft.
Improvise! (Max Dickins)
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Identity Theft. Retrieved September 29, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/identity-theft
The Improv Archive. "Identity Theft." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/identity-theft.
The Improv Archive. "Identity Theft." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/identity-theft. Accessed September 29, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.