The book "Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less" http://www.amazon.com/Hare-Brain-Tortoise-Mind-Intelligence/... goes into detail about how intuition works, where it comes from, what it's good at and what it's not good at. IMO, Gladwell's "Blink" was heavily based on "Hare Brain".

tldr: Intuition has a larger short-term memory space. It can process more complex systems than verbalized thinking. However, because it is not verbalized, it is difficult to componentize, communicate or reapply. It also does not work well on-demand or under pressure.

Cleese almost directly referenced the book "Hare Brain Tortoise Mind" ( http://www.amazon.com/Hare-Brain-Tortoise-Mind-Intelligence/... ). I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a deeper explanation of this topic.

A book that deals directly with the strengths and limitations of the unconscious reasoning pg is talking about is "Hare Brain Tortoise Mind".

http://www.amazon.com/Hare-Brain-Tortoise-Mind-Intelligence/...

I recommend it to everyone I know.