A chart is like a sports bet: A well-placed one can have a huge impact on you (and your wallet), but a bad one can ruin your day. And these days, knowing how to create effective charts is table stakes for any professional, not just data analysts and investment bankers.

Here are three chart-related questions you can ask yourself before putting $100 on a three-team basketball parlay.

Are your colors distinct enough between data series?

If you’re showing multiple data groups or series—like if you’re comparing customer clicks on three different web pages—it should be crystal clear which data point goes to which series.

DON’T: Choose similar colors to identify different data groups. This isn’t your roommate’s Kindle, so no Fifty Shades of Grey here.

DO: Choose colors in your graph that are easily identifiable and look different from each other.

Are the most important numbers and figures labeled on your graph?

You want to make sure the audience can easily spot and understand the important data points in your chart.

DON’T: Overdo it and label every number.

DO: Find the right balance between highlighting all the data and not providing enough information to your audience. Think: less labels than a Chipotle bag, but more labels than your ex-fling wanted in your relationship.

Does your title point to a specific takeaway?

Someone glancing at your chart should get it within five seconds. A great title does a lot of this work for you.

DON’T: Describe the dataset—that’s what the axis titles are for.

• For example: “Net Promoter Scores across products, 2021–2023” is not an effective title in most cases.

DO: Lay out the most important point of the graph. This changes based on the story you’re trying to tell with the data.

• For example: “NPS is highest for Product X” or “Customers have above-average experiences for Product X and Product Y.”

Happy charting.—KL

Last week, Chipotle sued Sweetgreen for trademark infringement over Sweetgreen’s new Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowl with “very similar and directly competitive” branding. The fast-casual restaurant didn’t hold back any guac: It asked for damages, legal fees, and any profits Sweetgreen would make from the new bowl.

And then faster than you could even say “no, three bags of chips,” Sweetgreen agreed to change the bowl’s name and avoid the lawsuit before things could escalate over the sneeze guard.

We’re not taking sides in this spicy issue, but how should you react when someone takes credit for your work, on a scale from petty AF to high-horse responsible?

Passive-aggressively reacting to the credit thief over Slack with

Complaining about the situation during a coworker Sweetgreen run (sorry, *Chipotle* run)

Proactively correcting someone or including yourself in a related meeting or during the actual credit-taking event

Sitting down and having a difficult convo with this person about the situation

If you’ve decided to pick the most responsible option, here’s a quick tip: Figure out exactly what you want to get out of the conversation. Are you looking to rectify the situation, prevent it from happening again, or even just get an apology? This will help both of you orient the convo and stay on track if emotions get involved.

And remember, there are two sides to every story—just like there’s room in the workweek lunch schedule for both burrito bowls.

Remember when you used to talk trash about your boss? Now people get to talk sh*t about you—welcome to the club.

In the Brew’s one-week virtual course, New Manager Bootcamp, you’ll learn how to avoid the mistakes most new managers make and walk away with the confidence and tools to approach any management challenge—even how to embrace the haters.

The course starts on Monday, so sign up today.

Thanks to the limitless depths of the internet, SEC rulings, and tax law, sleuthing for how much someone gets paid has never been easier—especially if they make a lot of money.

See if you can pin down the salaries for these industry leaders (we’ll leave any rounding errors in your favor).

• Chair of the Fed (Jerome Powell)
• President of Harvard (Lawrence Bacow)
• CEO of GM (Mary Barra)
• General Counsel at the World Wildlife Fund (Margaret Ackerley)
• Mayor of NYC (Eric Adams)
• CEOs of Citigroup (Jane Fraser) and JPMorgan Chase (Jamie Dimon)

Listen: Get tactical advice on how to say hard things, improve internal comms, and build and scale orgs from Claire Hughes Johnson, the former COO at Stripe. Claire is also speaking at a Morning Brew Learning leadership workshop on April 26. Register for free here.

Debate: Treadmill desks are so 2022—step into a “walking room” instead. Sure, sitting is the new smoking, but you tell us if getting winded in front of your coworkers is worth it.

Act: The best way to figure out your next job? Map your career. (Oh, and use code RAISE to get 10% off.)