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?"
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Related Exercises
Question Storming
Instead of brainstorming answers, brainstorm questions about your challenge. This reframes the problem and often reveals root causes and new angles.
Three-Second Pauses
When someone shares a creative idea, wait three full seconds before responding. Prevents knee-jerk rejection and gives time to genuinely consider the idea.
What I Like About That Is
One person pitches an idea. Others must respond starting with What I like about that is before adding their own idea. Builds a culture of building on rather than tearing down.
Talk It Out
When creatively stuck, find a sounding board and simply talk until you stumble across the answer. Conversation becomes a way of discovering what you actually think.
The Right Attitude
Exercises exploring how attitude shapes outcomes, practicing the adoption of constructive mindsets in challenging situations.
Suspend Judgments
Participants engage in exercises designed to notice and suspend their automatic judgments about others' ideas and contributions.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Identity Theft. Retrieved March 17, 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 March 17, 2026.
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