The interesting question is whether he developed any tacit skill or tacit knowledge that would explain his consistent success but would also be difficult to communicate or explain precisely because it's tacit, and therefore can only be described as listening to his gut. In the article, something like this is described:

I can tell she is going to say something else, and I’m pretty sure I know what it is. She’s going to share with me how much time she has left. I can hear it in her pauses. After so many years working the phone, I’ve learned to pick out the nuances, the things being said behind what’s being said, entire life stories even, in a hesitation or vocal inflection, in blank moments in time.

It's difficult to explain what makes a pause have meaning or nuance, and yet, this guy may be able to interpret them consistently in a simple phone call without seeing facial expressions and body language. Tacit stuff is really tough to define and nail down. So it's easy to say gut feeling instead. But as tacit stuff finally gets clarified, defined, and explained, we're often able to see that tacit stuff is anything but a gut feeling.